LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Presented  BY"K-eV.  LcWlsW.  M  tAcl^e.  ,  "^  -"B 


BS  651  .N5 

1881 

>0 

-^it-.^ 

?  '.f  <ai 

Nisbet,  E. 

1826 

-1893. 

The  science 

5  of 

the 

day 

and 

Genesis 

-^^.-^^  y^.  :m^^ 


—  BY  — 

Rev.  E.  NISBET,  D.D. 


THE  SCPCR  OF  THE  DAY  AND  GENESIS. 

Cloth  extra.    l2mo.    149  pages $1.00. 

PitOF.  Geo.  \V.  Nokthrup,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  President  Baptist 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  Morgan  Park,  III.,  says :  — 

"I  have  examined  Dr.  Nisbet's  '  Science  of  the  Day  and  Gen- 
esis '  with  some  care,  and  I  believe  its  publication  will  meet  a 
want  fell  by  a  large  number  of  the  more  intelligent  members  of 
our  churches. 

"The  work  gives  a  summary  statement  of  the  questions  in  dis- 
pute between  science  and  the  Bible,  and  will  be  very  useful  to  a 
large  class  of  people. 

"  It  is  written  with  candor  and  ability,  and  shows  familiarity 
with  the  most  important  discussions  bearing  upon  the  subject. 

"  The  work  is  well  done." 


RESyilRECTKIN  OF  THE  mV.  DOES  THE  BIBLE  TEACH  IT? 

With  an  Introduction  by  G.  W.  Samson,  D.  D.,  late   President  of  Columbia 
University,  D.  C.     Cloth  extra.  Ink  and  Gold,  12mo,  124  pages SI. 00 

It  is  clearly  and  vigorously  written.  —  Neio  York  Sun. 

It  is  an  excellent  treatise,  —  scholarly,  logical,  —  and  will  form  an  important  cou- 
tributiou  to  Christian  theology. —  ItEV.  Wu-liam  I.  Gill,  Author  of  "ICvolution 
and  Progress,"  etc. 

The  to.xts  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  have  been  pressed  into  8er\-ice  by 
ignorance,  he  returns  to  their  real  signilicance.  Dr.  Nishet  explains  the  physical 
impossiliility  of  the  truth  of  the  old  belief.  —  Literary  M'or/d. 

An  intercNiing  fact  brought  out  by  Dr.  Nisbct  is,  that  tlic  orthodox  scholars  have 
relaxed  niueh  of  the  former  vigor  of  the  doctrine.  Dr.  Nelson  s.ays  :  "  Whether 
it  be  a  teulli,  a  twentieth,  or  an  hundredth  part  of  our  present  body  which  is  to 
enter  into  the  formation  of  the  new,  God  has  not  chosen  to  tell  us."  So  Dr.  Hodge : 
"  Not  a  particle  of  one  need  be  in  the  other."  So  Dr.  Ilovey  :  "  The  resurrection 
bodies  of  saiuts  may  or  may  not  derive  the  substance  of  which  they  are  composed 
from  the  bodies  which  precede  them."  Pres.  E.  G.  Robinson  s.iys :  "  Few  if  any 
intelligent  per.sons  can  at  this  day,  1  think,  suppose  auy  part  of  the  body  laid  into 
the  grave  is  to  rise  with  us  at  our  resurrection."  —  iVtio  Jerusalem  Messenger. 

W.B.  SMITH  &  CO.,  Publishers,  27  Bond  Street,  New  York. 

***  Sent  post-paid  on  receipt  of  price. 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  THE  DAY 


AND 


''% 


^w  OF  emce, 

(       APR   r>    1921 

GENESIS.  W„         .^,v^^ 


BY 


y 


E.     NISBET,     D.D., 

AUTHOR  or  "  RKSCRRECTION  OF  THE  BODY :  DOES  THE  BIBLE  TEACH 

IT?"  ETC. 


Prove  all  thingB.  —  Paul. 
Science  must  consist  of  precise  knowledge.  —  Huxley. 


NEW  YORK: 

W.  B.  SMITH  &  CO., 

Bond  Strekt. 


COPTBIGHT,    1881, 

Br  -W.  B.  SMITH  &  CO. 


INSCRIBED 

TO 

MY  SISTER,   E.   F.   NISBET. 

«« We  've  clamb  the  hill  thegither.** 


(5) 


COKTEKTS. 


Chapter  Page 

I.    Whence  the  Earth? 11 

II.    The  Aim  of  the  Bible 23 

III.  The  Antiquity  of  the  Earth  ....  98 

IV.  "Day"  in  Genesis  1 32 

V.    The  Creation  of  Sun,  Moon,  Stars    .  38 

VI.    Death  among  Animals 43 

VII.     Darwinism 40 

VIII.    Antiquity  of   Man  (Evidences  of)     .    .  81 
IX.    Antiquity    of    Man   (continued).     (Year 

Measure  in  Geology) 92 

X.    Antiquity  of  Man  {continued).     (Biblical 

Chronology) 09 

XI.    Antiquity  of  Man  (concluded).    (Present 

Condition  of  the  Problem) 104 

XII.    Unity  of  Origin  of  the  Human  Species,  115 

XIII.    Final  Destiny  of  the  Earth.     .     .     .  123 


(O 


PEEFACE. 


This  treatise  has  a  unique  aim :  it  deals  witli  all  points  of 
rontTct  between  science  and  the  Bible  history  of  creation.  A 
l^?etintth^rm^^^  of  the  latest  teachings  of  science  in 

thisentire  fiekl  is  presented  and  reviewed.  A  large  amount 
of  matter  elsewhere  only  to  be  gathered  by  extensive  read- 
?n-  it  here  fS  The  volume  will  be  of  service  to  persons 
w&  would  be   abreast  with  current  thought,  pastors,  and 

^''^li:rTatLZTZle  are  not  always  Bible;  hypotheses 
in  science  at  not  always  science.  This  volume  ^^-^-^ 
to  render  human  interpretation  more  ^^%%%'X  £mved 
thou-ht  and  aid  in  the  distinguishing  of  Natuie  s  assuiea 
utterances  from  the  chatterings  of  pseudo-science. 

ninian  interpretations  of  the  Bible  and  science  pseudo- 
scSnce  and  the  Bible,  may  conflict,  -  science  and  the  Bible 
never  It  is  no  less  false  than  unjust  to  both  scientists  and 
Scsts  to  denominate  scientists  "sceptics,  opponents  of 
the  B  ble  infidels."  It  belies  many  scientists,  and  gives  the 
impSssion  tS  biblicists  are  clinging  desperately  to  some- 
tSns  wWch  thinking  has  outgrown ;  that  there  is  a  fight  going 

Se  not  to?gn?re  tiiif  and  th^'ow  the  weight  of  these  men 
and  Sir  facts  into  the  enemy's  camp.  Says  President  Chad- 
bonrne  ''The  difficulty  in  reconciling  the  geologic  with  the 
MosaTc  record  is  found  by  students  of  the  Bible  who  know 
.^t,f.r  m^rrticallv  of  seology,  and  by  students  of  geology 
MhS  KSant  of  thf  Sff  or  hate  its  plain  requirements, 
To^at  they  wSh  to  discredit  the  book  for  their  own  peace 
so  t^^^^'i^yj^^^^jt  men,  eminent  both  as  practical  geologists 
Snd  Bible  students,  like  Hugh  Miller,  Dawson  Ban.,  do  not 
seem  to  find  any  real  difficulty  in  the  case.  If  tlieie  aie  any 
two  livino-  men  who  are  better  able  to  give  an  opinion  in  this 
Slittei-tteirrrofs.  Dana  and  ^-vson  I  for  o^ie  should  be 
glad  to  go  far  to  take  lessons  from  them.  ^^^f^.^'^,;;, 
ume  wilf  help  to  confirm  this  position  of  President  Chad- 
bourne,  is  believed  by  ^^^  Author. 

LBAtBKWORTH,  Kak'sas,  Jude  1, 1831. 


(9) 


THE     SCIENCE     OF     THE    DAY 
AND     GENESIS. 


CHAPTER     I. 

WHENCE    THE    EARTH? 

Modern  science  has  offered  us  solutions  of 
"Whence  the  earth?"  Descartes,  two  centuries 
ago,  suggested  the  hypothesis  of  vortices.  In  the 
Cartesian  system,  a  vortex  is  a  collection  of  mat- 
ter forming  an  ether  or  fluid  endowed  with  a 
rapid  rotary  motion  around  an  axis.  From  such 
vortices  Descartes  constructs  the  universe. 

A  second  hypothesis,  the  nebular,  was  first  pro- 
posed by  Kant,  developed  somewhat  by  Herschel, 
thoroughly  systematized  by  Laplace  (obiit  1827). 
He  supposes  that  the  space  of  our  solar  system 
was  once  filled  by  matter  of  high  temperature,  and 
rarefied  much  more  than  our  most  rarefied  ffases. 
This  was  the  primary  nebula.     This  nebula  moved 

(11) 


1 2       THE  SCIENCE  OF  THE  DA  Y  AND  GENESIS. 

on  its  axis,  cooled  by  throwing  offbeat  into  space, 
and  as  it  cooled,  condensed.  The  circling  mass, 
becoming  flattened  at  the  poles  and  bulged  out  at 
the  equator,  assumed  gradually  the  form  of  a 
disk.  The  attraction  of  cohesion  of  the  matter  at 
the  circumference  of  the  disk  was  finally  overcome 
by  the  centrifugal  force ;  this  outer  matter  was 
separated  from  the  central  condensing  mass,  and 
became  a  revolving  ring.  Ring  after  ring  was 
thus  formed,  constituting  by  their  condensation 
our  now  planets.  The  rings  earliest  liberated 
were  of  matter  less  condensed  than  those  thrown 
off  later  from  the  ever-consolidating  mass ;  and 
so  we  find  the  planets  Uranus  and  Neptune,  for  dis- 
tant from  the  solar  central  mass,  have  the  specific 
gravity  of  cork,  while  the  other  planets  increase 
in  specific  gravity  as  they  near  the  sun.  The  pale 
rings  of  Saturn  to-day  may  give  some  conception 
of  the  disintegration  of  the  primary  nebula. 

After  the  ring  containing  the  matter  of  our  earth 
broke  and  fell  into  itself,  the  globe  thus  consti- 
tuted had  an  immense  dilatation,  embracing  our 
moon.  The  matter  finally  constituting  our  earth, 
revolving  and  condensing,  became  a  globe  of  melted 


WHENCE   THE  EARTH?  13 

lava.  Then,  after  indefinite  centuries,  a  scoria 
formed  here  and  there  on  the  surface  of  the  cooling 
mass.  By  and  hy,  the  scattered  scoriae  unite.  A 
crust  is  formed  enclosing  a  sea  of  fire.  From  time 
to  time,  by  contraction  of  the  ever-cooling  core, 
the  crust  breaks,  and  lava  belches  forth  ;  or  the 
crust  is  corrugated,  and  incipient  mountains  are 
formed.  The  surface  of  the  earth  ever  cooling 
more  and  more,  finally  the  vapors,  gases,  etc.,  of 
the  atmosphere  begin  to  fall ;  seas,  lakes,  rivers 
are  formed ;  by  their  attritions  soils  appear,  then 
vegetation,  then  creature  life  of  lowest  forms. 
The  interval  during  which  the  terrestrial  crust 
would  be  lowered  from  2,000"  to  200°  has  been 
estimated  by  Helmholtz  at  three  and  one  half 
millions  of  centuries. 

Such  is  the  nebular  theory  of  Laplace.  He 
claimed  that  certain  spots  of  light  in  the  heavens, 
of  duller  lustre  than  the  stars,  were  examples  of 
matter  even  now  existing  in  a  nebulous  state  ;  but 
when  later,  Lord  Rosse's  immense  telescope  was 
applied  to  these  supposed  nebula,  Laplace's  entire 
brilliant  fabric  tottered.  It  was  found  that  some  of 
the  spots  of  light  supiwsed  to  be  nebulous  matter 


14       THE  SCIENCE    OF  THE  DAY  AND  GENESIS. 

were  resolvable  into  distinct  stars.  It  was  now 
claimed  that  it  only  needed  a  telescope  of  suffi- 
cient power  to  resolve  all  the  so-called  nebulae  into 
stars.  The  hypothesis  fell  into  disrepute.  But 
the  recent  revelations  of  the  spectroscope  declare 
that  there  are  in  the  heavens  genuine  nebulae  ;  and 
the  nebular  origin  of  our  solar  system  has  again 
come  into  favor.  It  is  now  generally  maintained 
by  scientists. 

Previous  to  the  time  of  Laplace,  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  had  said,  "The  admirable  arrangement 
of  the  solar  system  cannot  but  be  the  work  of  an 
intelligent  and  most  powerful  Being."  Laplace 
claimed  that  Newton  in  this  statement  "  had  de- 
viated from  the  method  of  true  philosophy " ; 
and  it  has  been  thought  that  Laplace,  in  pro- 
pounding the  nebular  hypothesis,  had  an  atheistic 
purpose  in  view,  seeking  by  his  theory  to  indicate 
how  our  solar  system  might  have  originated  with- 
out the  aid  of  "an  intelh'gent and  powerful  Being." 
While  granting  to  Laplace  the  eternity  of  matter, 
we  may  yet  ask  him.  Whence  the  laws  impressed 
on  that  matter,  causing  to  spring  forth  our  solar 
system  in  such  beauty,  harmony  of  movements, 


WHENCE    THE  EARTH?  I5 

adaptations,  stability?  Does  not  all  this  speak  of 
more  than  a  mere  eternal  sovereign  force  ?  Does 
not  all  this  speak  of  a  preconceiving,  prear- 
ranging, powerful,  sovereign  Intelligence?" 

Further,  grant  Descartes  his  vortices,  Laplace 

his  nebula:   these  had  motion,  they  tell  us, a 

rotary  motion.  That  motion  could  not  have  been 
from  eternity ;  had  it  been  from  eternity,  the  vor- 
tices must  have  remained  vortices,  the  nebula  a 
nebula,  to  eternity ;  eternal  uniformity  of  motion 
past  must  have  ever  retained  matter  in  eternal  uni- 
formity of  condition.  That  these  vortices,  that 
that  nebula  could  have  taken  new  shape  in  time, 
some  force  not  impressing  them  from  eternity 
must  have  wrought  on  them  in  a  new  beo-innino- : 
there  must  have  existed  some  force  outside  of  \ 
themselves.  Was  not  that  new  outside  force, 
touching  them  in  time,  what  Genesis  calls  "  God  "? 

So  the  heat  of  the  nebula  could  not  be  from 
eternity,  else  it  would  have  remained  uniform  to 
eternity.  Was  not  the  new  power  outside  of  the 
nebula,  throwing  in  heat  upon  it  in  time,  what 
Genesis  calls  "  God  "  ? 

Grant   to   Laplace   the   nebular   origin   of  the 


16       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

earth,  this  nowise  conflicts  with  Genesis.  Says 
the  nebular  hypothesis,  "  Our  globe  was  once  a 
formless,  unfurnished,  chaotic  mass,  brooded  over 
by  darkness."  Says  Genesis,  "  The  earth  was 
once  emptiness  and  voidness  ;  darkness  was  the 
swaddHng  band  thereof."  Later  (so-called) 
science  is  but  an  echo  of  earlier  Genesis. 

Genesis  not  only  claims  that  a  force,  power, 
outside  of  matter  has  given  our  world  and  its 
present  furnishing  their  shaping,  but  it  also 
claims  that  that  power  is  an  Intelligence,  a  per- 
s(mal  Being,  —  God  ;  and  science  to-day,  in  its 
most  authentic  expounders,  reiterates  the  Mosaic 
assertion.  Will,  Intelligence,  a  Person,  gave  this 
universe  birth.  Says  Agassiz  (speaking  of  the 
life  furnishing  of  the  earth),  "The  combination 
in  time  and  space  of  these  thoughtful  conceptions, 
exhibits  not  only  thought,  —  it  shows  premedita- 
tion, power,  wisdom,  greatness,  prescience,  omnis- 
cience, providence ;  in  one  woi  d,  these  facts  in 
their  natural  connection  proclaim  aloud  the  one 
God,  whom  man  may  know,  adore,  and  love  :  and 
natural  history  must  in  good  time  become  the 
analysis  of  the  thoughts  of  the   Creator   of  the 


WHENCE   THE  EARTH?  17 

universe,  as  manifested  in  the  animal  and  vegeta- 
ble kingdoms." 

Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter,  one  of  the  foremost 
scientists  of  Great  Britain,  regards  "  Nature, 
or  the  material  universe,"  as  "  the  embodiment 
of  the  divine  thought,"  and  "  the  scientific  study 
of  nature"  as  "the  endeavor  to  discover  and 
apprehend  that  thought"  (to  have  "thought  the 
thoughts  of  God  "  was  the  privilege  most  highly 
esteemed  by  Kepler)  ;  and  Carpenter  quotes 
approvingly  Mr.  Martineau :  "  What,  indeed, 
have  we  found  [in  scientific  research]  by  moving 
out  along:  radii  into  the  infinite  ?  That  the  whole 
is  woven  toofether  in  one  sublime  tissue  of  intel- 
lectual  relations,  geometric  and  physical,  —  the 
realized  origfinal,  of  which  all  our  science  is  but 
the  partial  copy ;  that  science  is  the  crowning 
product  and  supreme  expression  of  human  rea- 
son. .  .  .  Unless,  therefore,  it  takes  more  mental 
faculty  to  construe  a  universe  than  to  cause  it, 
to  read  the  book  of  Nature  than  to  write  it,  we 
must  more  than  ever  [in  the  late  revelations  of 
science]  look  upon  its  divine  face  as  the  living 
appeal   of  thought   to   thought."     Carpenter,    as 


IS       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

Agassiz,  regards  the  universe  as  ''a  revelation  of 
the  mind  and  will  of  Deity,"  and  that  that  Deity 
is  a  person. 

So  Alfred  Wallace,  the  co-propounder  with 
Darwin  of  the  present  prevailing  phase  of  the 
evolution  hypothesis,  says,  "It  does  not  seem 
imi)robable  that  all  force  may  be  will  force,  and 
thus  that  the  whole  universe  is  not  merely 
dependent  on,  but  actually  is  the  will  of  higher 
intelligences,  or  of  One  Supreme  Intelligence. 
It  has  been  often  said  that  the  true  poet  is  a 
seer;  and  in  the  noble  verse  of  an  American 
poetess  we  find  expressed  what  may  prove  to 
be  the  highest  fact  of  science,  the  noblest  truth 
of  philosophy  :  — 

'  God  of  the  granite  and  the  rose  ! 
Lord  of  the  sparrow  and  the  bee ! 
The  mighty  tide  of  being  flows 

Through  countless  channels,  Lord,  from  thee ; 
It  leaps  to  life  in  grass  and  flowers, 

Through  every  grade  of  being  runs, 
While  from  creation's  radiant  towers 
Its  glory  flames  in  stars  and  suns.' " 

Thus  do  science  and  Genesis  harmoniously 
dechire  :  This  earth  and  its  fiuMiishinof  have  arisen 

o 

from  the  will  of  an  Intelligence,  from  God. 


WHENCE    THE  EARTH?  19 

Further,  in  the  expression  of  Genesis,  "G^ocZ 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  there  is 
declared  the  unity  of  the  power  pervading  all 
space  and  all  time  ;  and  precisely  this  is  the  utter- 
ance of  science  to-day,  whether  we  look  at  the 
uniformity  and  harmony  of  the  operations  of  the 
universe  in  the  present,  —  the  evident  concate- 
nated development  of  an  original  one  plan  in  the 
readings  of  the  geological  rock  record  of  the 
past,  —or  the  recent  doctrine  of  the  correlation 
of  forces,  that  the  sum  of  force  in  the  universe, 
potential  and  actual,  is  always  one  and  the  same, 
a  unit.  "  The  men  who  did  most  to  prepare  the 
way  for  this  doctrine,  the  correlation  of  forces, 
such  as  Newton,  Davy,  Oersted,  Herschel,  and 
Faraday,  all  delighted  to  see  God  in  his  works  ; 
and  the  philosopher  who  was  the  main  agent  in 
discovering  it,  Dr.  Mayer,  has  a  mind  filled  Avith 
the  presence  of  God,  and  looks  on  force  as  the 
expression  of  the  divine  power."  Says  Dr.  Car- 
penter, "The  culminating  point  of  man's  intel- 
lectual interpretation  of  nature  may  be  said  to 
be  his  recognition  of  the  wiily  of  the  power,  of 
which  her   phenomena  are  the  diversified   maui- 


20       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

festations.  Towards  this  point  all  scientific  in- 
quiry now  tends." 

Science  to-day,  in  one  of  its  most  recent  funda- 
mental advances,  the  correlation  of  forces,  is 
just  beginning  to  grasp  in  its  full  significance,  in 
its  sublime  height  and  all-encompassing  breadth, 
the  grand  idea  enunciated  in  the  first  verse  of  the 
Bible  cosmogoiiiy,  "  One  power  pervades  all 
things."  And  we  have  recently  offered  us  by 
Saigey  a  volume  whose  object  is  to  demonstrate 
the  "  Unity  of  Physical  Forces,"  in  which  vital 
activity  itself  is  made  simply  transformed  motion. 
Of  the  "atom  and  motion"  he  would  construct 
the  universe. 

Says  Prof.  Tyndall,  "I  have  noticed,  during 
years  of  self-observation,  that  it  is  not  in  hours 
of  clearness  and  vigor  that  this  doctrine  [material- 
istic atheism]  commends  itself  to  my  njind ;  that 
in  the  presence  of  stronger  and  healthier  thought 
it  ever  dissolves  and  disappears,  as  offering  no 
solution  of  the  mystery  in  which  avc  dwell  and 
of  which  we  form  a  part."  A  confession,  this,  that 
the  most  advanced  scientific  thinking  of  the 
day,  which  unifies   all  the  forces  producing   the 


WHENCE   THE  EARTH?  21 

varied  phenomena  of  the  universe,  cannot,  in  its 
"stronger  and  healthier"  hours,  persuade  itself 
that  the  all-pervasive  Power,  the  ultimate  Pro- 
ducer, is  non- intellectual  force ;  demands  some- 
thing higher,  finds  rest  only  in  the  acceptance  of 
the  Genesis  utterance,  "An  Intelligence,  God, 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 

Says  Dr.  Carpenter,  "  In  the  admirable  words 
of  the  great  master,  Sir  John  Herschel,  'In  the 
only  case  in  which  we  are  admitted  any  personal 
knowledge  of  the  origin  of  force,  we  find  it  con- 
nected (possibly  by  intermediate  links  untrace- 
able by  our  faculties,  yet  indisputably  connected) 
with  volition,  and  by  inevitable  consequence  with 
motive,  with  intellect,  and  with  all  those  attri- 
butes of  mind  in  which  personality  consists.'  As  a 
physiologist,"  continues  Carpenter,  "  I  most  fully 
recognize  the  fact  that  the  physical  force  exerted 
by  the  body  of  the  man  is  not  generated  de  novo 
by  his  will,  but  is  derived  from  the  oxidation  of  the 
constituents  of  his  food.  But  holding  it  as  equally 
certain,  because  the  fact  is  capable  of  verification 
by  every  one  as  often  as  he  chooses  to  make  the 
experiment,  that  in  the  performance  of  every  voli- 


22       THE   SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

tional  movement,  that  physical  force  is  put  in 
action,  directed  and  controlled  by  the  individual 
personality  or  ego^  I  deem  it  just  as  absurd  and 
illogical  to  affirm  that  there  is  no  place  for  a  God 
in  nature,  originating,  directing,  and  controlling 
its  forces  by  his  will,  as  it  Avould  be  to  assert  that 
there  is  no  place  in  man's  body  for  his  conscious 
mind."  "  Sun,  fire-mist,  molecules,"  says  Car- 
penter, "but  what  is  back  of  the  molecules?  A 
personality."  Genesis  names  that  personality 
"God." 


THE  AIM  OF   THE  BIBLE.  23 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    AIM    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

To  interpret  the  Bible  correctly  in  its  connec- 
tions with  science,  it  is  imperative  that  we  under- 
stand and  keep  in  mind  the  mission  of  the  Bible, 
and  its  method  of  dealing  with  man  in  his  primi- 
tive scientific  status. 

The  mission  of  the  Bible  is  distinctively  and 
absolutely  spiritual.  The  Bible  is  written  simply 
to  save  man  from  sin  and  its  consequences. 
Teaching  physical  science  is  thus  wholly  foreign 
to  the  Bible.  It  comes  to  man,  not  to  interfere 
with  his  ideas  of  physical  science,  but,  meeting 
him  on  his  own  peculiar  plane  of  knowledge  phys- 
ical, adapts  itself  in  infinite  condescension  to  his 
child-like,  inadequate  ideas  of  the  mysterious 
universe  of  matter  in  which  he  finds  himself,  and 
takes  hold  of  the  hand  of  the  wandering  child 
with  simply  one   thought;   to  lead  him  back  to 


24      THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  V  AND   GENESIS. 

the  Father  he  seeks;  leaving  the  correction  of 
his  ideas  of  the  physical  universe,  and  of  all  other 
human  sciences,  to  the  growing  light  of  the  child's 
developing  reason,  and  the  unfoldings  of  time. 

Accepting  this  as  the  correct  view  of  the  case, 
we  are  not  to  expect  that  the  Bible,  given  to  man 
in  his  infancy,  is  to  address  that  man  as  if  he 
were  acquainted  with  the  Copernican  system  of 
the  universe,  had  weighed  with  Torricelli  the 
firmament,  and  explored  with  Lyell  the  rocks. 
These  fields  are  left  gymnasia  for  the  play  of 
man's  God-bestowed  intellect.  If  the  divine  wis- 
dom, come  to  teach  man  moral  truth,  find  him 
in  his  infancy  in  physical  knowledge,  holding 
the  idea  that  the  expanse  of  the  earth's  atmos- 
phere is  a  solid  crystalline  vault  in  which  the 
stars  are  set,  and  in  which  are  "  windows  of 
heaven,"  if  he  thinks  the  earth  stands  still  and 
the  sun  moves,  —  the  language  is  adapted  to  such 
views. 

It  has,  in  opposition  to  this  view,  been  urged 
that  a  divine  teacher,  without  descending  to  the 
office  of  teaching  science,  might  yet  have  kept 
his   own   language   free   from   all  collusion  with 


THE  AIM  OF  THE  BIBLE.  25 

humtm  error.  In  reply  to  this,  De  Quincey  well 
says:  "Meantime,  if  a  man  sets  himself  steadily 
to  contemplate  the  consequences  which  must 
inevitably  have  followed  any  deviation  from  the 
customary  erroneous  phraseology  of  the  people, 
he  will  see  the  utter  impossibility  that  a  teacher 
(pleading  a  heavenly  mission)  could  allow  him- 
self to  deviate  one  hair's-breadth  (and  why  should 
he  wish  to  deviate  ?)  from  the  ordinary  language 
of  the  times.  To  have  uttered  one  syllable,  for 
instance,  that  implied  motion  in  the  earth,  would 
have  issued  into  the  following  ruins :  Firsts  it 
would  have  tainted  the  teacher  with  the  reputa- 
tion of  lunacy ;  secondly,  it  would  have  placed 
him  in  this  inextricable  dilemma :  on  the  one 
hand,  to  answer  the  questions  prompted  by  his 
own  perplexing  language  would  have  opened 
upon  him,  of  necessity,  one  stage  after  another 
of  scientific  cross-examination,  until  his  spiritual 
mission  would  have  been  forcibly  swallowed  up  in 
the  mission  of  natural  philosopher;  but  on  the 
other  hand,  to  pause  resolutely  at  one  stage  of 
this  public  examination,  and  to  refuse  all  further 
advance,    would  be,  in   the   popular   opinion,   to 


26       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

retreat  as  a  baffled  disputant  from  insane  para- 
doxes which  it  had  not  been  found  possible  to 
support.  One  step  taken  in  that  direction  was 
fatal,  whether  the  great  envoy  retreated  from 
his  own  words,  to  leave  behind  the  impression 
that  he  was  defeated  as  a  rash  speculator,  or 
stood  to  his  words,  and  thus  fatally  entangled 
himself  in  the  inexhaustible  succession  of  expla- 
nations and  justifications.  In  either  event  the 
spiritual  mission  was  at  an  end ;  it  would  have 
perished  in  shouts  of  derision,  from  which  there 
could  have  been  no  retreat  and  no  retrievance 
of  character.  The  greatest  astronomers  to-day, 
rather  than  seem  ostentatiously  learned,  will 
stoop  to  the  popular  phrase  of  the  sun's  rising 
and  setting;  but  God,  for  a  purpose  commen- 
surate with  man's  eternal  welfare,  is  by  some 
critics  thought  incapable  of  the  same  petty 
abstinence." 

Accept  this  view  as  to  the  method  of  the  Bible's 
dealing  with  man,  in  reference  to  the  facts  of 
nature,  there  is  at  once  removed  all  scientific 
objection  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  from  its 
incidental  expressions  touching  nature,  incorrect 


THE   AIM  OF   THE  BIBLE.  £7 

in  fact;  e.  ^.,  the  constitution  of  the  firma- 
ment, "windows  in  heaven,"  immovability  of  the 
earth,  etc.  And  if  we  find  the  grand  volunteer 
utterances  of  its  opening  page  —  the  creation  of 
all  by  the  One  w^hose  book  the  Bible  claims  to  be, 
and  creation  in  a  certain  order  in  the  creatures 
and  time  —  confirmed  by  later  science,  we  have 
here  evidence  that  a  wisdom  higher  than  the 
human  wisdom  of  that  early  day  wrote.  The 
Book  will  thus  on  its  first  page  declare  its  divine 
Author,  and  give  a  reason  for  a  respectful  hear- 
ins:. 


28       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  EARTH. 

Geology,  as  an  inductive  science,  had  its  ori- 
gin as  late  as  1807,  in  the  formation  of  "The 
London  Geological  Society."  In  some  matters  it 
is  only  yet  seeking  its  tiov  orco ;  in  others  it  has 
reached  solid  standing.  It  has  disabused  the 
mind  of  the  idea  that  the  earth  as  it  is  now  con- 
stituted was  spoken  instantaneously  into  exist- 
ence by  immediate  divine  fiat.  That  not  divine 
fiat  immediately  and  instantaneously,  but  natural 
agencies  mediately  and  by  long  process  have  built 
up  the  earth's  crust  in  its  present  form,  is  proven 
by  what  we  find  in  that  crust,  collated  with  what 
we  see  taking  place  continually  about  us.  The 
geologist  sees  on  the  sea-beach,  delta,  lake  shore, 
or  bottom  to-day,  layer  after  layer  of  saud  gently 
laid  down  ;  he  sees  now  forming  calcareous  rocks 
embedding  implements  of  man's  art  and  man  him- 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  EARTH.  29 

self,  the  fossils  of  the  future  ;  he  sees  wood  buried 
becoming  lignite  in  its  process  of  transformation 
into  coal ;  he  sees  the  bones  of  existing  species  of 
animals   buried   in  sediment;    he   sees  volcanoes 
thrusting  forth  their  melted  rock ;  he  sees  corals 
forming   their   islands,    reefs,    atolls,    and    shells 
agglutinating;   he  sees  the  workings  of  chemical 
atiinity  and  voltaic  action.     He  now  passes  from 
the  surface  of  the  earth  down  into  its  depths ;  he 
turns  over  leaf  after  leaf  of  the  stone  book.     On 
each  leaf  he  sees  distinctly  traced  the  impress  and 
seal  of  the  very  agents  he  finds  to  day  in  action 
at  their  incessantly  modifying  work  on  the  crust 
of  the  earth  all  round  about  him.     The  rocks  of 
the  earth's  crust  are  now  to  him  a  new  revelation. 
As  he  turns  over  their  stone  leaves,  he  recognizes 
the  earth's  own  handwriting ;  he   reads   there  its 
autobiography,  — a  writing    that  can  be   no  for- 
gery.    Says  the  geologist,  "  I  find  verified  in  the 
records    of    nature    what   I    find   written    in    the 
records  of  the  Bible,  '  I  change  not ! '    As  to-day 
the  wind  and  the  wave  and  the  cloud,  the  sunshine, 
heat,  cold,  winter's  snow,  summer's  rain,  autumnal 
sleet,  vernal  shower,  belching  volcano,  the  little 


30       >^^-^   SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND    GENESIS. 

unseen,  silent-working  coral  insect,  are  all  min- 
isters in  the  hand  of  the  one  universal  intelligent 
Worker,  modifying  the  crust  of  the  earth  and  for- 
warding his  world-idea ;  so  down  deep  in  the 
earth's  crust  I  find  traces  of  these  same  ministers 
accomplishing  mediately,  and  by  process  of  dura- 
tion incalculable,  the  behests,  in  earth-crust  mod- 
ification, of  the  one  sovereign  Intelligence,  and 
from  out  the  rocky  deeps  I  hear  a  voice  I  have 
heard  before, — 'I  am  the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day, and  forever.' " 

But  if  natural  agencies  have  fashioned  the 
earth's  crust  as  we  now  find  it,  a  duration  of 
indefinite  length  is  needed :  needed  for  the  dep- 
osition of  the  twenty  miles  of  stratified  rocks  in 
that  crust ;  needed  for  the  deposition  of  the  im- 
mense accumulations  of  shells  in  these  rocks, 
nearly  one  seventh  of  their  entire  bulk ;  needed 
for  the  rise,  life,  and  dying  out  (slow  processes) 
of  nearly  fifty  different  worlds  (Agassiz)  of  crea- 
tures, which  have  successively  peopled  our  glolie, 
leaving  their  traces  in  its  crust ;  needed  for  the 
growth  and  deposition  of  the  immense  vegetable 
accumulations  in  the  coal  measures,  in  Nova  Sco- 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  EARTH.  31 

till,  with  their  interstratified  soils,  nearly  three 
miles  in  thickness  (Lyell).  Six  million  years 
have  been  claimed   for  the  coal  measm'es  alone. 

The  heavens  above  us  declare  that  the  physical 
universe  is  created  on  a  errand  scale  as  to  time. 
Light  travels  nearly  200,000  miles  a  second.  It 
takes  light  from  nine  to  twelve  years  to  reach  us 
from  the  nearest  fixed  star.  Herschel  discovered 
stars  whose  light  must  travel  9,000  years  before 
reaching  our  world,  and  nebulte  whose  light  would 
only  reach  us  after  3,000,000  years.  Indication 
here  of  the  grandeur  of  the  time  scale  of  our 
universe  ;  one  part  becoming  aware  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  other  part  only  after  the  expiration  of 
3,000,000  years. 

This  voice  from  the  stars  may  lessen  our  as- 
tonishment at  the  voice  froui  the  rocks  demand- 
ing for  our  earth  an  antiquity  of  millions  of 
years. 

The  point  in  time  of  the  creation  of  our  world 
is  not  given  us  in  the  Bible,  nor  any  data  by 
"svhich  it  may  be  approximately  determined.  The 
only  Biblical  statement  is,  "In  the  beginning 
God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 


32       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

"  DAY  "   IN   GENESIS   I. 

Long  before  the  rise  of  geology,  "  day "  in 
Genesis  i.  was  judged  difficult  to  interpret. 
Josephus  declared  "  day  "  metaphorical ;  Origen 
thought  it  an  indefinite  period ;  Augustine  de- 
clares it  not  only  difficult  to  understand,  but 
even  to  conceive  what  sort  of  day  is  here  meant. 
In  more  modern  times,  " day" has  been  regarded  a 
figurative  expression  for  an  indefinite  period ; 
others  regard  it  the  ordinary  day ;  others  still 
think  it  was  understood  by  the  writer  as  an  ordi- 
nary day,  but  stood  in  the  Divine  mind  as  symbol 
of  a  vast  period. 

Any  interpretation  of  "day,"  to  be  accepted, 
must  harmonize  with  both  of  God's  volumes,  — 
Nature,  the  Bible. 

(a. )  Those  who  hold  that  the  "  day  "  of  the  narra- 


"DAY"   IN  GENESIS  I.  33 

tive  of  creation  is  an  ordinary  day  maintain  that 
an  indefinitely  long  period  intervenes  between  the 
creation  spoken  of  in  the  first  verse,  and  the  crea- 
tions recounted  in  the  verses  immediately  follow- 
ing,—  these  latter  verses  recounting  simply  the 
creations  which  took  place  a  few  thousand  years 
ago  at  the  introduction  of  man.  The  gap  thus 
left,  it  is  claimed,  between  the  first  verse  and  the 
verses  following  gives  ample  time  for  all  the 
tvorlds  of  geology. 

This  view  assumes  that  in  twenty-four  hours  our 
continents  rose  from  an  unbroken  ocean  and  took 
their  present  form ;  that  in  forty-eight  hours  all 
the  now  existing  species  of  animals  came  into  be- 
ing. Science,  on  the  contrary,  declares  that  such 
processes  demand  immense  duration.  This  inter- 
pretation is  now  generally  rejected.  Dr.  Conant, 
in  rejecting  it,  declares  the  assumption  of  a  long 
lapse  of  time  between  the  creative  act  of  the  first 
verse  and  the  creative  acts  of  the  verses  which 
follow  to  be  wholly  unwarranted  by  anything  in 
the  sacred  writer's  statement ;  and  claims  that 
the  extension  of  the  creative  work  through  six 
successive  periods,  of  whatever  duration,  can  be 


34       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

explained  only  by  the  fact  that  the  work  was  not 
accomplished  by  a  sudden  exertion  of  supernatural 
power,  but  "  by  the  operation  of  those  secondary 
causes  which  the  structure  of  the  earth  proves  to 
have  been  active  in  its  formation,  requiring  ages 
for  their  accomplishment." 

(5.)  The  figurative  interpretation,  making 
"day"  an  indefinitely  long  duration,  agrees  with 
science  ;  but  the  narrative,  by  the  exact  limita- 
tion "  evening  "  and  "  morning,"  impresses  us  with 
the  idea  that  the  writer  conceived  of  "  day  "  as  an 
ordinary  day.  The  same  impresses  us  at  the  insti- 
tution of  the  Sabbath  (Ex.  xx.  10,  11). 

(c.)  The  symbolical  interpretation  of  "day"  — 
"  day  "  understood  by  the  loriter  as  an  ordinary  day, 
but  standing  in  the  Divine  mind  as  a  symbol  of  a 
higher  duration  —  solves  all  difficulties. 

Some  of  the  foremost  Biblical  scholars  maintain 
that  the  creation  history  was  communicated  to  man 
in  successive  visions,  — tableaux.  The  six  tableaux 
of  creation  rose  before  the  eyes  of  the  seer,  im- 
pressed him  as  six  successive  periods  of  work,  — 
as  six  ordinary  days,  and  their  rise  and  fading 
away  as  morning  and  evening.     But  in  the  Divine 


"DAY"  IN  GENESIS  I.  35 

mind  these  six  tableaux  were  symbols  of  periods 
of  past  working  of  indefinite  length. 

Kevelation  of  God's  works  past  holds  the  same 
relation  to  the  human  and  the  Divine  thought  as 
revelation  of  God's  works  future.  The  same 
method  of  interpretation  is  applicable  to  both. 
One  is  prophecy  teaching  backward,  the  other 
prophecy  teaching  forward.  We  find  the  "day," 
"week,"  "year,"  of  prophecy  forward  stood  some- 
times in  the  Divine  mind — the  event  infallibly 
interpreting — as  symbols  of  higher  periods  (Dan. 
ix.  24-27,  and  xii.  11,  12  ;  Ez.  iv.  6).  So  if  the 
unfoldings  of  God's  works  in  the  past  by  physical 
science  teach  that  in  the  symbol  "  day  "  there  lay 
in  the  Divine  mind  an  outlook  and  conception 
infinitely  more  grand  than  the  human  lansfuacfe 
would  indicate,  or  the  human  mind  then  was  fitted 
to  receive,  we  are  to  accept  these  unfoldings  of 
science  as  giving  us  God's  own  interpretation  of 
the  miniature  symbol  "day."  As  the  child-man 
advances  in  physical  knowledge,  the  height  and 
grandeur  of  the  full  content  of  the  miniature 
symbol  open  up  to  him,  just  as  the  unfoldings 
of  historical  events  lead  man  to  the  height   and 


36      THE  SCIENCE    OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

grandeur  of  the  Divine  thought  in  their  miniature 
symbols. 

And  here  are  perfectly  harmonized  the  ordinary 
day  conception  of  the  writer  of  the  narrative,  and 
the  indefinitely  long  periods  required  by  science. 
JEach  of  the  six  tableaux  of  the  creative  week 
;  impressed  the  seer  as  an  ordinary  day,  while  in 
I  the  Divine  mind  each  tableau  was  symbol  of  an 
indefinitely  long  period.  And  the  facts  of  the 
rock  record  correspond  precisely  with  the  Mosaic 
tableaux  in  the  kind  of  creations,  and  in  the  num.- 
her  and  order  of  the  creation  periods.  Traces  of 
the  first,  second,  and  third  day's  work  —  light, 
firmament,  the  heavenly  bodies  —  must  be  only 
incidental  in  the  rocks ;  full  traces  of  only  the 
third,  fifth,  and  sixth  days'  work  —  vegetation, 
creeping  creatures,  beasts,  and  man  —  can  we 
expect  the  rocks  to  give  us.  Full  traces  of  these 
latter  three  days'  work  we  find  in  the  rocks,  and 
in  the  precise  order  given  us  in  Genesis.  The 
geologic  scale  divides  itself  into  three  grand 
parts :  Palteozoic,  Secondary,  and  Tertiary.  The 
Palfeozoic  —  corresponding  to  Genesis'  third  day 
—  was   emphatically   the    plant   period,     "herbs 


"DAY"  IN  GENESIS  I.  37 

yielding  seed  after  their  kind."  In  no  other  age 
was  such  vegetation  ;  this  is  the  period  of  vast 
vegetable  accumulations  constituting  our  coal. 
On  the  fifth  creative  day  appear  the  sea  monsters, 
creeping  creatures,  birds.  Corresponding  with 
this,  the  Secondary  period  of  geolog}'  abounded 
above  all  other  periods  in  enormous  monsters  of 
tlic  deep,  creeping  creatures,  and  birds  of  wonder- 
ful size  ;  and  coincident  with  the  beasts,  cattle, 
man  of  the  sixth  creative  day,  the  Tertiary  is  spe- 
cially the  epoch  of  great  beasts,  of  cattle,  and  the 
only  epoch  in  which  traces  of  man  are  found. 

The  great  divisions  of  the  geologic  scale  thus 
correspond  in  number  and  in  kind  of  creatures 
and  order  of  creation  with  the  three  sj'mbolic 
tableaux  of  Genesis  —  the  third,  fifth,  and  sixth 
days  ;  and  the  "  morning  "  and  "  evening  "  of  the 
Biblical  narrative  find  their  antitypes  in  the 
gradual  introduction  and  gradual  fading  out  of 
the  peculiar  existences  of  each  of  the  great 
periods. 


38       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 


CHAPTER    V. 

'^*«<]^-*-<j^^  CREATION   OF   SUN,    MOON,    STARS. 

The  writer  describes  things  not  as  they  abso- 
lutely are,  but  as  they  would  have  appeared  to  an 
unskilled  observer  on  the  surface  of  our  earth,  — 
as  they  appeared  to  the  eye  of  the  seer  in  the  vision 
tableaux.  In  this  principle  we  have  the  explana- 
tion of  the  narrator's  putting  the  creation  of  the 
"  light  bearers  "  on  the  fourth  day,  although  light 
existed  from  the  first  day. 

When  our  globe  was  simply  a  glowing  fire-ball 
of  melted  lava,  the  heat  thrust  out  from  it,  into  the 
surrounding  space,  vapor,  gases,  and  other  ma- 
terials, enshrouding  the  earth  in  a  dense  cloud  : 
"The  cloud  was  the  garment  thereof,  and  thick 
darkness  the  swaddling  band."  That  cloud  gar- 
ment must  have  remained  wrapping  the  earth 
during  vast,  indefinite  periods.     During  all  these 


CREATION  OF  SUN,  MOON,  STARS.  39 

periods  the  "  light  "  only  of  the  "  light  bearers  " 
would  reach  the  earth ;  no  disk  yet  of  sun,  moon, 
star.  As  these  disks  first  became  visible  throuo-h 
the  enshrouding  cloud  envelope  of  the  earth,  they 
would  appear  to  an  observer  on  the  earth  just 
then  to  have  been  created,  and  so  the  seer  wrote  : 
the  time  of  the  appearance  to  him  in  the  fourth 
tableau  of  their  disks,  he  makes  the  time  of  their 
creation. 

The  rock  record  accords  with  this.  The  vegeta- 
tion  of  the  third  day  —  that  of  our  coal  measures 
—  was  a  rank  and  flowerless  vegetation,  well 
adapted  to  a  warm,  steaming  atmosphere,  muf- 
fled in  cloud.  Immediately  after  this,  vegetation 
changes,  as  also  animal  life  ;  by  both  changes  there 
is  indicated  a  change  towards  dryness  and  intenser 
light  in  the  atmosphere,  as  well  as  a  change  in  the 
constitution  itself  of  the  atmosphere,  rendering  it 
suitable  for  the  respiration  of  the  new  animals 
now  appearing. 

This  is  the  explanation  given  of  the  existence  of 
"light"  during  the  first  three  days,  by  St.  Basil, 
St.  Caesarius,  and  Orifjen,  long  before  o-eoloo-v 
had  birth  :  the  "light  bearers"  existed  during  the 


40       THE  SCIENCE    OF  THE  DA  Y  AND    GENESIS. 

first  three  days,  but  their  disks  were  not  visible 
through  the  earth's  cloud  mantle.  "  Who,"  exclaims 
Origen,  "that  has  sense  can  think  that  the  first, 
second,  and  third  days  were  without  sun,  moon. 
or  stars  ! " 

A  condition  of  atmosphere  analogous  to  that  I 
claim  for  our  earth  down  to  the  close  of  the  coal 
period  is  found  amid  the  Andes  of  South  America 
to-day.  "  A  thick  mist  during  a  particular  season 
obscures,"  says  Humboldt  ("Cosmos"),  "the  fir- 
mament, for  a  period  of  many  months.  Not  a 
planet,  not  the  most  brilliant  stars  of  the  southern 
hemisphere, — Canopus,  the  Southern  Cross,  nor 
the  feet  of  Centaur,  — are  visible.  It  is  frequently 
almost  impossible  to  discover  the  position  of  the 
moon.  If  by  chance  the  outlines  of  the  sun's  disk 
be  visible  during  the  day,  it  appears  devoid  of  rays. 
According  to  what  modern  geology  has  taught  us 
to  conjecture  regarding  the  ancient  history  of  our 
atmosphere,"  continues  Humboldt,  "  its  primitive 
condition  as  to  its  mixture  and  density  must  have 
been   unfavorable  for  the  transmission  of  ligrht." 

To  claim  that  the  earth  remained  in  a  heated, 
steaming  condition  down  to  the  close  of  the  coal 


GREAT  10 M  OF  SUN,   MOON,   STARS.  41 

period  may  seem  to  demand  an  exorbitant  time 
for  its  cooling ;  but  speaking  of  the  cooling  pro- 
cess to-day,  Prof.  Dana  says  ("  Geology,"  G83)  : 
"  At  present  very  little  of  the  interior  heat  of  the 
earth  reaches  the  surface.  According  to  Poisson, 
the  amount  is  only  one  seventeenth  of  a  degree 
Fahrenheit ;  and  to  reduce  this  amount  one 
half,  or  to  one  thirty-fourth,  would  now  require 
100,000,000,000  years.  Mr.  Hopkins,  of  Eng- 
land, has  stated  that,  supposing  this  the  only 
mode  of  cooling,  it  must  have  required  as  long 
a  time  as  this,  100,000,000,000  years,  to  have 
diminished  the  earth's  temperature  the  last  two 
or  three  degrees  of  its  decrease."  Nor  would  a 
planet  covered  over  for  ages  with  a  tliick  screen 
of  vapor  be  a  novelty  even  yet  in  the  universe. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  astronomers  have  ever  yet 
looked  on  the  face  of  Mercury,  — it  is  at  least 
very  generally  held  that  only  his  clouds  have 
been  seen.  Even  Jupiter,  though  it  is  thought 
that  his  mountains  have  been  occasionally  detected 
raising  their  peaks  through  openings  in  his  cloudy 
atmosphere,  is  known  chiefly  by  his  dark,  thick, 
shifting   bands.      It    is    questionable   whether   a 


42      THE  SCIENCE   GF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

human  eye  on  the  surface  of  Mercury  would 
ever  behold  the  sun,  notwithstanding  his  near 
proximity ;  nor  would  he  be  often  visible,  if  at 
all,  from  the  surface  of  Jupiter.  Says  Dawson, 
"Jupiter  and  Saturn  are  probably  still  intensely 
heated,  and  encompassed  with  a  vaporous  '  deep ' ; 
untold  ages  must  elapse  before  they  can  sus- 
tain life  like  that  on  the  earth." 

Prof.  Dana  maintains  almost  identically  the 
view  here  presented  ("Geology,"  742  el  seq.). 

I  prefer  this  view  to  that  of  Whiston,  dis- 
carded by  Newton  and  Laplace, — that  on  the 
fom-th  day  the  earth,  by  a  change  in  its  axis,  came 
into  a  new  relation  to  the  sun ;  also  to  the  view 
held  by  some,  that  the  self-illumination  of  the 
earth,  or  diffused  illuminated  cosmical  matter, 
supplied  the  light  of  the  first  three  days  (Knapp, 
Kurtz,  Dawson,  Winchell). 

Prof.  Dana  claims  that  the  placing  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  sun  so  lon»  after  the  creation  of  liofht, 
so  accordant  with  modern  science,  is  strong  evi- 
dence of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Bible  cosmogony  ; 
no  human  mind  at  that  era  would  have  so  written. 


DEATH  AMONG  ANIMALS.  43 


CHAPTER    VI. 

DEATH   AMONG   ANIMALS. 

The  old  heathen  poets  delighted  to  sing  of  a 
golden  age  past.  So,  also,  Milton  sings  of  a 
golden  age  past,  no  death  yet  even  for  animals, 
—  not  until, 

"Her  rash  hand  in  evil  liour 
Forth  reaching  to  the  fruit,  she  plncked,  she  eat; 
Earth  felt  the  wound,  and  nature  from  her  seat, 
S  ighing  through  all  her  works,  gave  signs  of  woe, 
That  all  was  lost.  .  .  . 

Discord  first. 
Daughter  of  sin,  among  the  irrational, 
Death  introduced  through  fierce  antipathy ; 
Beast  now  with  beast  'gan  war,  and  fowl  with  fowl, 
And  fish  with  fish ;  to  graze  the  herb  all  leaving, 
Devoured  each  other." 

The  belief  that  Adam's  sin  was  the  origin  of 
discord  and  death  among  animals  has  widely  pre- 
vailed. 


44       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

Geology  negatives  this  :  — 
"  Under  the  ribs  of  some  monstrous  fossil  rep- 
Hr/y*>4>N  tiles,  greatly  earlier  than  Adam,  their  stomachs 
*T*"  '^^are  still  found,  containinor  the  more  solid  relics  of 
^^^^1^  the  food  on  which  they  had  lived.  Among  these 
4JUaX*0  relics  of  food  are  the  bones  and  scales  of  fishes, 
j^jkS^  showing  the  marks  of  the  teeth  of  the  reptile  which 
devoured  them." 

A  carnivorous  animal  cannot  live  on  herbage, 
nor  an  herbivorous  animal  on  flesh.  Are  we,  then, 
to  suppose  tliat  before  Adam  sinned,  lions,  tigers, 
eagles,  vultures  fed,  like  oxen,  sheep,  and  spar- 
rows, on  herbage,  fruits,  and  seeds?  They  could 
not,  with  their  present  anatomy.  Are  we  to  sup- 
pose a  miraculous  change  in  their  anatomy,  at  the 
moment  of  Adam's  sin?  We  have  no  evidence  of 
such  change,  but  evidence  to  the  contrary.  But 
^had  all  animals  previous  to  Adam's  sin  been  her- 
bivorous, in  the  herbage  they  eat  and  in  the  water 


hey  drank,  unnumbered  lives  must  have  perished. 
The  Bible  does  not  hint  that  the  death  of  ani- 
mals is  in  any  way  connected  with  Adam's  sin. 
The  Genesis  narrative  makes  no  reference  to  death 
among  animals.     But  we  may  fairly  infer  from  it 


DEATH  AMONG  ANIMALS.  45 

that  death  was,  from  the  beginning,  by  the  very 
constitution  of  things,  the  law  of  all  earthly  life, 
man  included.  That  man  might  escape  this  law, 
God  planted  a  tree  in  the  garden  — "  the  tree  of 
life"  —  with  power  to  preserve  against  death. 
This  unique  provision  for  the  preservation  of  man 
from  death  forces  upon  us  the  inference  that 
death  was  the  original  law  of  all  earthly  life, 
man  included;  and  to  man,  only  through  the 
expedient  of  "the  tree  of  life"  was  escape  pos- 
sible from  the  universal  law,  death,  even  had  he 
abode  in  holiness. 


cvA-    V-^^-*^    -*     "W^'   O-wif^'    ^-^'^^"-''VO,'^-**-*^-^-^  * 


^.t-A^f..,.-*^     C_^-*>-i-<^ 


,,.^^<^f,jk^^^>tr-^      (K    VtS'-'b-*-*-*^-  rv^ 


46       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

DARWINISM. 

The  evolution  hypothesis  is  ancient  and  of  many 
forms. 

The  Egyptian  sage  maintained  that  our  globe 
was  originally  a  ball  of  wet  cla}'.  The  clay  dry- 
ing in  the  sun,  little  blisters  arose.  These,  be- 
coming impregnated  with  some  subtile  spiritual 
influence,  became  the  embryos  of  all  future  ter- 
restrial organisms.  Upon  the  bursting  of  the 
clayey  shells,  the  earth  became  peopled  by  crea- 
tures of  low  grade,  which  in  time  were  developed 
into  the  beauty  and  perfection  of  the  living  forms, 
man  included,  now  inhabiting  the  earth. 

The  Greek  Epicureans  held  a  similar  theory  of 
the  rise  of  terrestrial  organisms. 

Since  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  evolution 
theories  have  been  rife.     The  one  which  obtained 


DARWINISM.  47 

most  notice  previous  to  Darwinism  was  that  of 
the  French  naturalist  La  Marck,  propounded  at  the 
})eo-inning  of  the  present  century.  He  claimed 
that  spontaneous  generation  from  the  ocean 
produced  all  organisms,  man  included.  At  first 
appeared  animal  life  in  its  lowest  forms ;  and 
from  that,  all  we  now  see  has  been  developed. 
He  held  that  effort  to  act  and  habit  of  action  are 
the  great  developing  force.  For  instance,  some 
fowls,  by  continually  making  an  effort  to  swim,  so 
stretched  the  skin  on  their  feet  that  they  became 
web-footed ;  the  heron,  on  the  contrary,  disliking 
the  water,  and  drawing  itself  up  to  keep  dry,  has 
become  long-legged ;  the  giraffe,  by  the  habit  of 
reaching  up  among  the  tree  limbs  for  its  food, 
so  stretched  its  neck  that  it  became  permanently 
lonff-necked.  Science  now  declares  spontaneous 
generation  unproven,  and  La  Marck's  theory  of 
development  is  now  laughed  at. 

The  prevailing  phase  of  the  evolution  theory  at 
present  is  Darwinism,  propounded  about  twenty-  / 
five  years  ago  by  Charles  Darwin  of  England,  in      c^ 
his  "Origin  of  Species." 

He  makes  "natural  selection"  the  main  develop 


48       THE  i]CIENCE    OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

ing  force.  By  natural  selection  Darwin  means 
simply  this ;  In  the  struggle  for  life  going  ever  on 
among  animals,  those  individuals  having  any  inju- 
rious variation  of  form  perish ;  those  having  any 
advantageous  variation  of  form  survive  and  prop- 
agate their  peculiarity ;  and  the  advantageously 
formed  individuals  being  ever  thus  selected  by 
nature  from  each  generation,  the  animal  creation 
ever  develops  into  new  and  higher  forms.  Here 
we  have  the  origin  of  species,  genera,  classes, 
man, — one  or  more  primal  monads  only  having 
been  created  by  God. 

(a.)     Does  Darwinism  conflict  with  the  Bible? 

Not  in  demanding  a  great  age  for  the  earth  : 
the  Bible  tells  us  nothinor  about  the  ao^e  of  the 
earth.  Not  in  its  theory  of  the  origin  of  life  on 
the  earth :  Darwin  ascribes  that  directly  to  God 
("Origin  of  Species,"  1st  ed.  419).  Not  in 
claiming  that  species  and  genera,  man's  body  in- 
cluded, have  arisen -by  a  process  of  natural  selec- 
tion :  the  Bible  gives  us  no  information  as  to  the 
I  process  by  which  God  produced  these.  The  sep- 
aration of  the  light  from  the  darkness,  causing  the 
alternation  of  day  and  night ;  the   formation  of 


DARWINISM.  49 

tlie  firmament ;  the  elevation  of  the  land  from  out 
the  waters,  — were  all  effected  by  slow  process  of 
natural  forces,  and  why  should  not  God  proceed 
in  the  same  method  in  the  production  of  the  crea- 
tures? Darwin,  as  the  Bible,  claims  that  "All 
the  races  of  man  are  descended  from  a  sin«:le 
primitive  stock"  ("Descent  of  Man,"  I.  220). 
Genesis  impresses  us  that  man  is  a  unique  being  on 
earth  :  "  God  breathed  into  him  the  breath  of  life," 
he  "became  a  living  soul,"  he  w^as  made  the 
"image  and  likeness"  of  God.  Darwin  also  de- 
clares man  unique,  the  only  "moral  being"  on 
enrth  ("Descent  of  Man,"  I.  85,  and  II.  370). 
Darwin  claims  that  man  derived  in  germ  all  in  him 
from  "  a  hairy  quadruped,  furnished  with  a  tail 
and  pointed  ears,  and  an  inhabitant  of  the  Old 
World";  and  this  creature  is  descended,  "  in  the 
dim  obscurity  of  the  past,  from  an  aquatic  animal 
provided  with  branchise,_  with  the  two  sexes  united 
in  the  same  individual."  .Genesis  impresses  us  that 
man  did  not  receive  his  unique,  high  nature,  set- 
ting him  over  all  other  terrestrial  creatures,  from 
any  of  these  subject  creatures,  but  directly  at  his 
a[jpearance  from  God.     This  matter  for  the  pres- 


50       THE  SC/EA'CE   OF  THE  DA  V  AND   GENESIS. 

ent  thrown  out,  we  muy  come  to  the  examination 
of  the  other  dogmas  of  Darwinism  without  reli- 
gious prejudice,  regarding  these  dogmas  as  having 
simply  a  scientific  interest. 

(6.)  Does  Darwinism  present  sufficient  proof 
to  make  it  probable,  and  warrant  us  to  accept  it 
provisionally  ?    I  answer  negatively. 

Fundamental  to  Darwinism  is  transmutation  of 
species.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  any  vege- 
table or  animal  species  has  ever  been  observed  to 
put  on  the  characteristics  of  another  species,  by 
either  natural  or  artificial  selection.  So  Herbert 
Spencer  concedes.  Huxley  says,  "  It  is  our  clear 
conviction  that,  as  the  evidence  stands,  it  is  not 
absolutely  proven  that  a  group  of  animals,  having 
all  the  characteristics  of  a  species  in  nature,  has 
ever  been  originated  by  selection,  whether  artificial 
or  natural."  Quatrefages  ("Human  Species") 
claims  this  transmutation  for  a  kind  of  wheat ;  but 
says  great  care  in  its  cultivation  must  be  exercised, 
or  it  perishes,  —  which  is  a  confession  that  it  is  not 
a  "good"  species.  This  non-observation  of  the 
transmutation  of  species  is  a  serious  objection  to 
Darwinism ;     this    Huxley  confesses,    and   says. 


DARWINISM.  51 

"As  the  case  now  stands,  this  'little  rift  within 
the  lute '  is  not  to  be  disguised  nor  overlooked." 

'J  he  rocks  give  no  evidence  of  transmutation  of 
species  ;  their  voice  is  against  it. 

In  the  earliest  geological  epochs,  indeed,  the 
lower  types  of  organisms  predominate ;  in  the 
later,  the  higher  types.  But  we  do  not  find,  iSrst 
the  low,  gelatinous,  homogeueous  individual,  then 
the  partially  developed,  yet  aborted  organism, 
and  this,  in  concatenated  progression  of  forms, 
passing  into  the  perfectly  developed  individual  of 
the  species,  and  this  species  passing  by  similar 
process  into  a  new  species,  genus,  family,  class. 
Not  a  trace  of  this  is  found.  But  just  such  pro- 
cess must  geology  exhibit  before  it  becomes  aux- 
iliary to  the  dogma  of  transmutation  of  species  by 
natural  selection.  On  the  contrary,  at  the  very 
first  appearance  of  any  form  of  life  in  the  rock 
record,  it  is  always  perfect ;  often  the  earlier 
species  are  of  higher  type  than  the  later. 

For  instance,  the  marine  fucoids  —  sea- weeds  — 
are  the  earliest  plants  known.  When  later  the 
laud  vegetation  appears,  it  bears  no  evidence  of 
being   a    gradual     development    of     the    marine 


52       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

fucoids,  but  it  appears  all  at  once  perfect,  and 
a  higher  development  in  some  cases  is  found  than 
now  :  the  primeval  ferns  and  club-mosses  attained 
the  height  of  forest  trees,  now  they  are  pygmies. 

Similarly  speaks  the  geological  record  of  ani- 
mal life.  Eozoon  Canadense,  of  the  lower  Lau- 
rentian  rocks,  is  its  earliest  trace, — mere  animrtted 
jelly.  Now  notice,  between  the  first  appearance  of 
Eozoon  and  the  lower  zone  of  Silurian  life  above, 
there  intervene  about  100,000  feet  of  rock,  rep- 
resenting, pro])ab!y,  millions  of  years.  Were 
the  Darwinian  natural-selection  development  the- 
ory true  in  nature,  should  we  not  expect  to  find 
Eozoon,  as  it  mounts  up  through  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  years  towards  Silurian  life,  devel- 
oping into  something  higher  than  mere  homo- 
geneous undifferentiated  jelly?  Should  we  not 
expect  to  find  it  branching  out  into  species,  gen- 
era, families,  until,  by  an  almost  imperceptible 
bridge,  we  are  carried  over  into  higher  Silurian 
life?  But  all  this,  demanded  by  Darwin's  hypoth- 
esis, fails  in  nature  :  the  latest  Eozoon  differs  not 
from  the  earliest ;  it  abides  in  one  species,  and 
dies  out   in   the    earlier   Laurentian.     For  about 


DARWINISM.  53 

30,000  feet  above  the  latest  Eozoon  there  is  no 
trace  of  life,  the  upper  Laurentian  and  Iluronian 
being  azoic.    Passing  on  upwards  over  the  45,000 
feet  of  the  Cambrian  and  its  obscure  life,  which 
can   in  no  sense   be  regarded  as   a  development 
from  Eozoon,  what   do  we  find  in  Silurian  life? 
Instead  of  one  species,  as   Eozoon,    and   that   a 
mere  bit  of  jelly,  we  find  in  the  lower  Silurian 
more  than   three   hundred   and   seventy  species. 
The    trilobite   is   the    characteristic   type.       One 
hundred    and    sixty-eight    species    of    trilobites, 
more  than  forty  genera,  spring  at  once  into  exist- 
ence, "having  no  trilobitic   forerunners,  and  no 
nearly  related   preceding    organism."      And  this 
unheralded   trilobite   is  of  great  perfection,  with 
an  eye  of  wonderful  complexity,  and  as  thoroughly 
adapted  to  its  method  of  life  as  the  eagle's  eye 
to-day.     All  this  strongly  militates  against  Dar- 
winism.    And  among  these  trilobites,   instead  of 
development,  degradation  in  the  later  Silurian  is 
found :  some  had  lost  their  eyes,  and  were  other- 
wise degraded. 

Barrande,  of  Europe,  Principal  Dawson    calls 
"the  first  palaeozoic  palaeontologist  of  our  age." 


54      THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  V  AND   GENESIS. 

He  has  made  the  study  of  the  fossils  of  the  ancient 
systems  of  rocks  a  specialty.  He  declares  that 
the  facts  he  there  finds  decidedly  contradict  Dar- 
win's theorij  of  evolution  by  natural  selection  ;  and 
he  stands  to-day  an  uncompromising  opponent  of 
that  h3^pothesis.  Says  Dawson,  "In  connection 
with  his  great  and  classical  work  on  the  Silurian 
fossils  of  Bohemia,  it  has  been  necessary  for  him 
to  study  the  similar  remains  of  every  other  coun- 
try ;  and  he  has  used  this  immense  mass  of  mate- 
rial in  preparing  statistics  of  the  population  of  the 
palteozoic  world  more  perfect  than  any  other  nat- 
uralist has  been  able  to  produce.  In  previous 
publications  he  has  applied  these  statistical  results 
to  the  elucidation  of  the  history  of  the  oldest 
group  of  crustaceans,  the  trilobites,  and  the 
highest  group  of  moUusks,  the  cephalopods.  In 
his  latest  memoir  of  this  kind  he  takes  up  the 
brachiopods,  or  lamp-shells,  a  gro.up  of  bivalve 
shell-fishes,  very  ancient  and  very  abundantly 
represented  in  all  the  older  formations  of  every 
part  of  the  w^orld,  and  which  thus  affords  the 
most  ample  material  for  tracing  its  evolution, 
with  the  least  possible  difficulty  in  the  nature  of 


DARWINISM.  55 

'  imperfection  of  the  record.'  He  claims  that  the 
facts  of  his  wide  induction  prove  that  variation  is 
not  a  progressive  influence,  and  that  specific  dis- 
tinctions are  not  dependent  on  it,  but,  to  use 
Barrande's  words,  'on  the  sovereign  action  of  one 
and  tlie  same  creative  cause.'  "  These  conclu- 
,  sions,  it  is  to  be  observed,  are  not  arrived  at  by 

'^^^'''Mif*''*^  that  slap-dasli  method  of  mere  assertion  so  often 
^^'**^  foHowcd  by  Darwinists,  but  by  the  most  severe 
and  painstaking  induction. 

After  examinino;  the  distribution  in  time  of  the 
genera  and  species  of  the  brachiopods,  Barrande 
proceeds  to  consider  the  animal  population  of 
fourteen  successive  formations  included  in  the 
Silurian  of  Bohemia,  with  reference  to  the  follow- 
ing questions  :  — 

1st.  How  many  species  arc  continued  from 
the  previous  formation  unchanged? 

2d.  How  many  may  be  regarded  as  modifica- 
tions of  previous  species  ? 

3d.  How  many  are  migrants  from  other  re- 
gions, where  they  have  been  known  to  exist  pre- 
viously ? 

4th.     How  many  are  absolutely  new  species  ? 


56       THE   SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

The  total  number  of  species  of  brachiopods  in 
these  fourteen  formations  is  640,  efivins:  an  aver- 
age  of  45.71  to  each;  and  the  results  of  accu- 
rate study  of  each  species  in  its  characters,  its 
varieties,  its  geographical  and  geological  range, 
are  expressed  in  the  following  short  statement, 
which  should  somewhat  astonish  those  gentlemen 
who  are  so  fond  of  asserting  that  derivation  is 
demonstrated  by  geological  facts  :  — 


First,  species  coutiiuied  unchauged 28  per  cent. 

Second,  species  migrated  from  abroad  7    "      " 

Third,  species  continued  with  modification 0    "      " 

Fourth,  new  species  Avithout  known  ancestors..  .65    "      '• 

This  of  the  brachiopods,  Barrande  shows  holds 
nearly  of  the  cephalopods  and  the  trilobites  ;  and 
in  fact,  that  the  proportion  of  species  in  the 
successive  Silurian  faunre  Avhich  can  be  attributed 
to  descent  with  modification  (^.  e.,  to  natural 
selection)  is  absolutely  nil — nothing.  Barrande 
may  well  remark  that  in  the  face  of  such  facts,  the 
origin  of  species  is  not  to  be  explained  by  what  he 
terms  "the  poetic  leap  of  the  imagination." 

Not  only  do  the  early  fauna  of  Silurian  times 
negative  Darwinism,   but   also    the  fauna  of  the 


DARWINISM.  57 

more  recent  formations.  The  elephants  and  their 
allies,  the  deinotheres  and  mastodons,  e.  g.,  appear 
all  at  once  in  the  Miocene  period  and  in  many 
countries.  The  edentates,  the  rodents,  the  bats, 
the  manatees,  are  equally  mysterious  ;  and  so  are 
the  cetaceans,  those  great  mammalian  monsters  of 
the  deep,  which  leap  into  existence  in  grand  and 
highly  developed  forms  in  the  Eocene,  and  which 
—  were  Darwinism  true  —  surely  should  have  left 
in  marine  deposits  some  trace  of  the  forms  through 
which,  naturally  selected,  they  passed.  But  even 
Gaudry,  an  evolutionist,  confesses,  "We  have 
questioned  these  strange  and  gigantic  sovereigns 
of  the  Tertiary  oceans  as  to  their  progenitors, 
but  they  leave  us  without  a  reply." 

And  all  through  the  rock  record  we  fail  to  find 
those  intermediate  fossil  forms  of  life,  connecting 
the  dying-out  and  the  new-rising  creatures,  which 
we  should  expect  to  find  had  all  life  in  a  concat- 
enated chain  of  development  arisen  out  of  one 
primordial  form.  All  the  most  highly  organized 
groups  appear  at  once  and  unheralded  upon  the 
stage.  Darwin  recognizes  here  a  difficulty. 
"Why,"  says  Darwin,   "is  not  every  geological 


58       TffE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

formation  and  every  stratum  full  of  such  interme- 
diate links?  Geology,"  he  continues,  "assuredly 
does  not  reveal  any  such  finely  graduated  organic 
chain.  And  this,  perhaps,  is  the  most  ol)vious 
objection  to  my  theory." 

And  if  Darwinism  is  true  in  nature,  why  do 
we  not  find  the  noiu  living  creature  world  a  com- 
plete jumble  of  confusion,  no  Avell-marked  lines 
separating  the  different  kinds  of  animals  and  vege- 
tables, all  running  into  each  other  in  form,  habits, 
instincts?  Our  present  nature  utterly  negatives 
such  a  condition  of  things.  Scientists  claim  that 
nature  has  ever  abode  the  same ;  nature  is  uni- 
form ,  Nature,  then,  has  never  exhibited  such  a 
jumbling  into  each  other  as  Darwinism  claims ; 
nature,  then,  has  always  negatived  Darwinism. 

Some  evolutionists  make  much  of  the  grada- 
tional  forms  connecting  the  reptile  and  the  bird. 
But  Huxley  in  his  New  York  lectures  confesses 
failure  here.  He  says,  "If  these  transitional 
forms,  which  are  claimed  to  link  the  reptile  with 
the  bird,  were  the  result  of  development  of  the 
reptile  to  the  bird  by  natural  selection,  they  ought 
to  stretch  over  several  geological  periods.     But 


DARWINISM,  59 

all  these  gradational  forms,  and  the  genuine  bird 
itself,  are  found  in  one  rock  period,  are  geoloo-i- 
eal  contemporaries." 

Much   has   also   been    made    of  the   horse-like 
footed  animals,  found  by  Prof.  Marsh  in  our  own 
far  West,  as  indicatini^  whence  our  horse  ;  one  of  JT^  • 
these  horse  progenitors  being  only  about  the  size  k/V^,^^ 
of  a  fox  !     The  fnct  that  no  horses  were  found  ou^^^'Sl 
this  continent  when  discovered  by  Europeans,  aud^^^T^ 
no  fossil  horse  bones  are  found  in  the  rocks,  utterIy\^'V^\; 
negatives  the  theory  of  the  creatures  discovered  by  'S^^^n 
Prof.  ]Marsh  being  the  progenitors  of  our  horse.  ' 

The  objections  just  indicated  to  the  acceptance 
of  Darwinism  arise  when  we  seek  simply  to  link 
animal  with  animal.  When  we  seek  to  link  man 
with  the  animals,  difficulties  intensify.  The  forms 
among  brutes  which  most  resemble  the  human 
are  those  of  the  apes ;  and  of  these,  that  of  the 
African  gorilla.  That  there  are  anatomical  re- 
semblances between  the  gorilla  and  man  is 
doubtless  true  ;  but  no  less  is  it  true,  that  the 
differences  are  so  marked  that  no  anatomist 
claims  the  gorilla  to  be  the  connecting  link 
between    the    man  and  the  brute.     Summing  up 


60       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  V  AND    GENESIS. 

his  comparison  of  man  with  the  gorilla,  Huxley 
says,  "  I  find  that  those  who  attempt  to  teach 
what  nature  so  clearly  shows  in  this  matter  are 
liable  to  have  their  opinions  misrepresented  and 
their  phraseology  garbled,  imtil  they  seem  to  say 
that  the  structural  difierences  between  man  and 
the  highest  apes  are  small  and  insignificant. 
Let  me  take  this  opportunity,  then,"  continues 
Huxley,  "  of  distinctly  asserting,  on  the  contrary, 
that  they  are  great  and  significant ;  that  every 
bone  of  the  gorilla  bears  marks  by  which  it 
might  be  distinguished  from  the  corresponding 
bone  of  a  man ;  and  that  in  the  present  creation 
at  any  rate  [i.  e.,  among  existing  creatures],  no 
intermediate  link  bridges  over  the  gap  between 
man  and  the  apes.  It  would  be  no  less  ^vrong 
than  absurd  to  deny  the  existence  of  this  chasm." 
And  Haeckel,  an  extreme  evolutionist,  says  ("  Cre- 
ation," H.  277),  "I  must  here  point  out  —  what, 
in  fact,  is  self-evident  —  that  not  one  of  all  the 
still  living  apes,  and  consequently  not  one  of  the 
so-called  man-like  apes,  can  be  the  progenitor  of 
the  human  race.  This  opinion  [of  linking  man 
lineally  with  any  of  the  now  living  apes],  in  fact. 


DARWINISM.  61 

has  never  been  maintained  by  thoughtful  adher- 
ents of  the  theory  of  descent ;  but  it  has  been 
assigned  to  them  by  their  thoughtless  opponents. 
The  ape-like  progenitors  of  the  human  race,"  con- 
tinues Haeckel,  "  are  long  since  extinct ;  we  may 
possibly  find  their  fossil  bones  in  the  Tertiary 
rocks  of  Southern  Asia  or  Africa." 

The  answer  of  Darwinists  to  the  question 
"Whence  man?"  is  different  from  that  supposed 
by  many.  Darwinists  do  not  hold  that  man  has 
descended  lineally  from  the  apes.  They  say  that 
away  very  far  back  in  geological  time  —  probably 
the  Tertiary  —  existed  an  animal  whence  sprang 
two  lines  of  descent ;  one  of  these  lines  terminates 
in  our  now  apes,  the  other  in  man.  This  makes 
the  difficulty  of  deriving  man  from  the  brute  at  all 
very  great ;  for  query,  "  Where  is  man's  long  line 
of  ancestors,  reaching  from  the  time  of  first  branch- 
ing off  to  perfect  man?"  —  "We  cannot  tell," 
answer  the  evolutionists.  Haeckel  says  he  thinks 
it  possible  that  these  ever-developing  pithecoid 
ancestors  of  ours  may  be  lying  buried  in  the  Ter- 
tiary rocks  of  Southern  Asia  or  Africa,  or  may 
be  in  "  Lemuria,"  now  under  the  Indium  Ocean  ! 


62       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND    GENESIS. 

One  of  the  most  repulsive  characteristics,  to  a 
thoughtful  man,  in  Darwinists  is  their  overween- 
ing pride  and  self-conceit.  "We  men  of  science," 
said  Huxley  in  his  New  York  lectures,  "get  an 
awkward  habit  —  no,  I  will  not  call  it  that,  for  it  is 
a  valuable  habit  —  of  reasoning,  so  that  we  believe 
nothing  unless  there  be  evidence  for  it ;  and  we 
have  a  way  of  looking  upon  belief  which  is  not 
based  on  evidence  as  not  only  illogical  but  im- 
moral." And  with  this  braggadocio  yet  on  their 
lips,  these  same  men  come  to  you  and  me,  and 
say,  "The  present  apes  are  not  our  grandfathers. 
We  had  grandfathers  in  a  different  line  of  apes, — 
we  guess.  These  apish  grandfathers  and  grand- 
mothers of  ours  existed  in  Tertiary  times,  —  we 
guess.  We  have  never  seen  anything  that  looks 
like  the  slightest  trace  of  them,  but  we  guess  they 
existed.  The  fossil  bones  of  these  grandfathers 
and  grandmothers  of  ours  lie  deep  doAvn  in  the 
rocks  of  Southern  Asia,  —  we  guess ;  if  not 
there,  maybe  in  the  rocks  of  Africa ;  and  if  not 
there,  maybe  in  the  old  soil  of  'Lemuria,'  very 
deep  down  in  the  rocks  under  the  Indian  Ocean,  — 
we  guess.     Now,  if  from  us  '  men  of  science,'  so 


DARWINISM.  63 

exacting  in  all  matters  of  evidence,  yon  do  not 
accept  this  as  science,  you  are  fogies,  —  are  not 
up  with 'advanced  thought.'" 

Some  seek  to  link  man  to  ape-like  ancestors  by 
means  of  ancient  human  skeletons,  specially  by 
the  crania.  They  claim  that  these  ancient  relics 
are  marked  with  pithecoid  characteristics,  and 
thus  help  to  grade  men  down  to  the  brute. 

Probably  the  most  ancient  human  cranium  yet 
found  is  the  Engis.  But  of  it  Huxley  says, 
"Assuredly  there  is  no  mark  of  degradation 
about  any  part  of  its  structure.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
fair  average  human  skull, — which  might  have 
belonged  to  a  philosopher,  or  might  have  con- 
tained the  thoughtless  brains  of  a  savage." 

Quatrefages  maintains  that  no  human  crania  yet 
found  bring  us  in  type  nearer  the  brute,  and 
says,  "Believers  in  pithecoid  man  must  be  con- 
tent to  seek  him  elsewhere  than  in  the  only  fossil 
human  races  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  and 
to  have  recourse  to  the  unknown." 

Prof.  Virchow,  of  Berlin,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished living  biologists,  and  an  evolutionist, 
in  summing  up  what  has  been  done  in  this  direc- 


64       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

tion,  says,  "  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the  proof 
were  produced  that  man  had  ancestors  among  th(i 
other  vertebrates.  You  are  aware  that  I  ara  now 
specially  engaged  in  the  study  of  anthropology  ; 
but  I  am  bound  to  declare  that  every  positive  ad- 
vance [^.  €.,  facts]  which  we  have  made  in  the 
province  of  prehistoric  anthropology  has  actually 
removed  us  farther  from  the  proof  of  such  con- 
nection. .  .  .  When  we  study,"  continues  Vir- 
chow,  "the  most  ancient  fossil  man,  who  must  of 
course  have  stood  comparatively  near  our  primi- 
tive ancestors  in  the  series  of  ascent,  we  always 
find  a  man  just  as  men  are  now.  On  the  whole, 
we  must  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  complete 
absence  of  any  fossil  type  of  the  lower  stage  in 
the  development  of  man.  Nay,  if  we  gather 
tosfether  the  whole  sum  of  the  fossil  men  hith- 
erto  known,  and  put  them  parallel  with  those  of 
the  present  time,  we  can  assuredly  pronounce 
that  there  are  among  living  men  a  much  greater 
niunber  of  individuals  who  show  a  relatively  infe- 
rior type  than  there  are  among  the  fossils  known 
up  to  this  time."  Prof.  Virchow  thus  decLu'es 
not  only  that  facts  to-day  do  not  sustain  evolu- 


DARWINISM.  65 

lion  of  man  from  some  lower  form,  ))iit  that  the 
voice  of  facts  is  ao-ainst  it.  And  in  his  statement 
that  the  fossil  human  crania  are  on  an  average 
higher  in  grade  than  those  of  men  living  to-day, 
he  accords  with  the  Bible,  that  the  hnnian  species 
has  become  degraded. 

Prof.  Asa  Gray,  in  his  recent  Yale  lectures, 
says,  "  When  the  naturalist  is  asked,  'What  and 
Avhence  the  origin  of  man?'  he  can  onlj^  answer  in 
the  words  of  Quatrefages  and  Virchow,  '  We  do 
not  know  at  all.'  We  have  traces  of  his  existence 
up  to,  and  even  anterior  to  the  latest  marked  cli- 
matic change  in  our  temperate  zone,  but  he  was 
then  perfected  man  ;  and  no  vestige  of  an  earlier 
form  is  known.  The  believer  in  direct  or  special 
creation  is  entitled  to  the  advantaije  which  this 
negative  evidence  gives." 

Thus  at  present  the  great  chasm  separating  man 
anatomically  from  the  brute  stimds  all  nnbridged. 

Not  only  does  man  present  us  new  beginnings 
anatomically,  but  we  find  in  him  other  new  begin- 
nings :  in  language,  law,  social  reJations,  capability 
of  intellectual  progression,  governance  by  reason 
instead    of   by    instinct,    moral    nature,    religious 


CA\       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

nature.  Here  even  Huxley  acknowledges,  "  The 
divergence  of  the  human  and  simian  stirps  is  im- 
measurable and  practically  infinite." 

Another  line  of  thought :  — 

Some  creatures  there  arc  of  very  complex  adap- 
tations to  their  peculiar  conditions  of  existence 
and  modes  of  life  ;  if  any  one  of  these  adaptations 
of  instinct,  organ,  function,  is  missing,  the  indi- 
vidual and  species  must  have  perished.  These 
adaptations  must  have  all  appeared  coetaneously 
with  the  individuals  of  the  species.  In  the  honey- 
bee, for  example,  "  There  is  an  instinct  for  getting 
honey ;  and  answering  to  this  instinct,  an  instru- 
ment just  suited  for  drawing  up  the  honey  from 
the  nectaries  of  the  flowers.  There  is  also  a  sack 
for  holding  it  and  for  producing  certain  changes 
in  it.  There  is  an  instinct  for  storing  this  honey, 
and  a  substance  secreted,  by  a  peculiar  function  of 
the  body,  that  can  be  moulded  into  cells  to  hold  it. 
There  are  instruments  o^iven  for  usin^:  the  sub- 
stance  to  the  best  possible  advantage,  and  instincts 
to  guide  in  the  best  use,  both  of  the  instruments 
and  the  substance.  Instinct  comes  in  at  the 
proper  place  to  link  all  these  agencies  together. 


DARWINISM.  67 

Let  a  single  link  be  wanting,  and  all  other  parts  of 
the  chain  are  useless  as  a  means  of  preserving  the 
species  ;  and  complicated  as  this  whole  process  is, 
it  is  only  a  part  of  the  connected  series  of  func- 
tional and  instinctive  adjustments  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  honey-bee  life,  as  the  species  now  exists." 

A  difficulty  seemingly  insurmountable,  here,  to 
the  hypothesis  that  the  bee  —  organs,  functions, 
instincts  —  arose  by  the  slow  process  of  natural 
selection  ! 

"Some  years  ago,"  says  Prof.  Schlieden,  "one 
morning  I  entered,  in  the  lunatic  asylum,  the 
room  of  a  madman.  I  found  him  crouching  down 
by  the  stove,  watching  with  close  attention  a 
saucepan,  the  contents  of  which  he  was  carefully 
stirring.  At  the  noise  of  my  entrance  he  turned 
round,  and  with  a  face  of  the  greatest  importance, 
whispered,  'Hush,  hush!  don't  disturb  my  little 
pigs;  they  will  be  ready  directly.'  Full  of  curi- 
osity to  know  whither  his  diseased  imagination 
had  now  led  him,  I  approached  nearer.  'You 
see,'  said  he,  with  the  curious  expression  of  an 
alchemist,  'here  I  have  black  puddings,  pigs'  bones, 
and  bristles  in  the  saucepan,  —  everything  that  is 


68 


THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 


necessary;    we  only  lack  the  vital  warmth,   and 
the  young  pig  will  be  ready  made  again.' " 

In  connection  with  this  saucepan  man,  with  his 
"ijlack  puddings,  pigs'  bones,  nnd  bristles,"  look- 
ing for  his  piggy  to  appear,  declaring  we  have 
everything  that  is  necessary,  —  we  only  lack  the 
"vital  warmth,"—  we  may  call  to  mind  the  Dar- 
winists, who  sing  in  chorus  to  ns,  "Hush,  hush! 
don't   disturb    my    little    protoplasm,    my    little 
monad,  my  little  ascidian,  my  little  monkey  ;  man 
will  be  ready  directly  !     You  see  we  have  here  in 
the  saucepan  the  primeval  tire-mist,  the  promise 
and  potency  of  life  —  organic,  intellectual,  moral 
—  in  a  cooled  lava  ball,  spontaneous  generation, 
protoplasm,  monad,  ascidian,  monkey  ;  we  season 
these   with    large    hypotheses,    and    many    hirge 
chasms,  and  frequent  large   jumping,  hu-ge    cre- 
dulity, and  bold  unproven  theses,  —  we  only  hn  k 
quite  a  variety  of  indispensables  !  "     Darwinism  is 
forever  like  the  lunatic,  looking  for  his   pig  to 
appear ;  is  all  right  if  it  only  had  something  it  has 
j^ot    got,  —  something    wanting   here,   something 
wanting  there,  something  wanting  almost  every- 
where. 


DARWINISM.  69 

Says  Tyndall  (''Fragments,"  154),  "In  more 
senses  than  one,  Mr.  Darwin  has  drawn  heavily 
upon  the  scientific  tolerance  of  his  age  "  So  the 
French  Academy  of  Science,  declining  to  elect  Dar- 
win as  one  of  its  meml)ers,  gave  as  its  reason  that 
Darwin  is  not  scientific  ;  that  "he  has  too  far  sacri- 
ficed reason  to  imagination  to  deserve  a  place 
in  the  front   rank  of  scientists." 

"Science,"  says  Huxley,  "must  consist  of  pre- 
cise knowledge."  We  have  just  seen  that  Dar- 
winism utterly  fails  to  come  up  to  this  requisition. 
"  The  proper  scientific  mood  is  the  indicative  mood. 
Science  tells  what  has  been,  what  is,  and  what 
shall  be.  But  Mr.  Darwin's  argument  is  a  con- 
tinual conjugation  of  the  potential  mood.  It 
rings  the  changes  on  '  can  have  been,'  '  might  have 
been,'  'would  have  been,'  'should  have  been,' 
until  it  leaps  with  a  bound  into  'must  have  been.' 
"VYe  are  reminded,  in  fact,  by  Darwin's  method  of 
deriving  man  from  the  ape  b}^  natural  selection,  of 
the  famous  story  which  Corporal  Trim  endeavored 
in  vain  to  recite  to  Uncle  Toby.  'There  was  a 
certain  king  of  Bohemia,'  said  Trim,  'but  in  whose 
reign  except  his  own,   I  am  not  able  to  inform 


70       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

your  Honor.'  Uncle  Toby  was  more  accommo- 
datins:  than  we  are  able  to  be  from  a  scieiititic 
point  of  view.  But  we  recommend  the  gracious 
permission  accorded  the  corporal  as  a  most  appro- 
priate motto  for  Darwinian  speculations:  '"Leave 
out  the  date  entirely,"  said  my  Uncle  Toby.'  In 
almost  similar  language,  '  There  w^as  a  certain 
monkey,'  says  Mr.  Darwin,  —  of  that  he  is  quite 
sure,  and  he  frequently  reiterates  his  assurance, — 
'there  was  a  certain  monke}' ;  but  of  what  period, 
or  in  what  country,  or  of  what  shape,  except  his 
own,  I  am  not  able  to  inform  my  reader.'" 

Says  Tyndall  (probably  in  one  of  his  "  hours  of 
clearness  and  vigor"),  "What  are  the  core  and 
essence  of  this  development  hypothesis?  Strip  it 
naked,  you  stand  face  to  face  with  the  theory  that 
not  alone  the  more  ignoble  forms  of  animalculte 
or  animal  life,  not  alone  the  nobler  forms  of  horfee 
and  lion,  not  alone  the  wonderful  mechanism  of 
the  human  body,  but  that  the  human  mind  itself, 
intellect,  will,  and  all  their  phenomena,  were  once 
latent  in  a  fiery  cloud  [the  primitive  nebula]. 
Surely  the  mere  statement  of  such  a  notion  is  more 
than  a  refutation.     But  the  hypothesis  as  held  by 


DARWINISM.  71 

many  would  probably  even  assert  that  at  the 
present  moment  all  our  philosophy,  all  our 
poetry,  all  our  science,  and  all  our  art,  — Plato, 
Kaphael,  Shakespeare,  Newton,  —  are  potential 
in  the  tires  of  the  sun ;  and  that  even  the  unsatis- 
fied yearnings  in  us  to  know  our  oriii^in  must 
have  come  to  us  across  the  ages  which  separate 
the  unconscious  primeval  fiery  mist  from  the 
consciousness  of  to-day.  Surely,"  adds  Tyndail, 
"these  notions  represent  an  absurdity  too  mon- 
strous to  be  entertained  by  any  sane  mind." 
This  ''  development  hypothesis,"  of  which  Tyn- 
dail thus  speaks,  is  Darwinism  with  its  Huxleyan 
prolongation  backward,  —  the  "expectation"  that 
all  terrestrial  organisms  have  arisen  from  "not 
living  matter." 

Gray,  in  his  recent  Yale  lectures,  although  an 
evolutionist,  declares  that  the  Darwinan  natural- 
selection  hypothesis  fails  to  explain  what  we  rind 
in  nature.  He  says,  "  While  I  see  how  variations 
of  a  given  organ  or  structure  can  be  led  on  to 
greater  modification,  1  cannot  conceive  how  non- 
existing  organs  come  thus  to  be,  how  Avholly 
new  parts  are  initiated,  how  anything  can  be  ltd 


72       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

on  which  is  not  there  to  be  taken  hold  of.  .  .  . 
All  appears  to  have  come  to  pass  in  the  course  of 
nature,  and  therefore  under  second  causes  ;  but 
what  these  causes  are,  or  how  connected  and 
interfused  with  the  first  cause,  we  know  not  now, 
perhaps  shall  never  know.  And  I  cannot  help 
thinking,"  continues  Gray,  "  that  Darwin  would 
agree  with  me,  that  the  principle  of  natural  selec- 
tion does  not  account  for  it." 

And  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  co-propounder 
with  Darwin  of  the  natural-selection  hypothesis, 
after  enumerating  a  large  number  of  facts  in 
nature  which  this  hypothesis  cannot  account  for, 
dec 'ares  it  insufficient ;  and  says  specially  of 
man,  "The  inference  that  I  would  draw  from 
this  class  of  phenomena  is,  that  a  superior  intel- 
ligence has  guided  the  development  of  man  in 
a  definite  direction,  and  for  a  special  purpose,  by 
means  of  more  subtile  agencies  than  we  are  ac- 
quainted with.  My  theory,"  continues  AVallace, 
"requiies  the  intervention  of  some  distinct  indi- 
vidual intelligence,  to  aid  in  the  production  of 
what  we  can  hardly  avoid  considering  as  the  ulti- 
mate aim  and  outcome  of  all  organized  existence, 
—  intellectual,  ever-advancing,  spiritual  man." 


DARWINISM.  73 

Darwinism  requires  so  many  unproven  hypoth- 
eses for  its  support,  and  so  completely  fails  to  ex- 
plain what  we  find  in  nature,  that  it  is  not  worthy 
even  of  provisional  acceptance  as  the  key  for  the 
solution  of  the  mystery  of  the  modus  operandi  of 
the  rise  of  terrestrial  organisms.  Says  President 
Porter,  of  Yale  College,  "Juniors  frequently  are 
evolutionists,  but  Seniors  usually  get  over  it.  I 
predict  that  in  ten  years  the  theory  will  be  fully 
exploded."  Said  Agassiz,  just  before  his  death, 
"I  think  that  careful  observers,  in  view  of  pres- 
ent facts,  will  have  to  acknowledge  that  our  sci- 
ence is  not  yet  ripe  for  a  fair  discussion  of  the 
origin  of  organized  beings.  I  hold  that  this 
world  of  ours  is  not  the  result  of  unconscious 
organic  forces,  but  is  the  work  of  an  intelligent, 
conscious  power."  So  speaks  science  to-day, 
and  so  spoke  Moses  long  centuries  ago  :  "  In  the 
beginning,  an  intelligent,  conscious  power  —  God 
—  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  the  sea, 
and  all  that  therein  are."  As  to  the  methods  of 
this  intelligent  power's  working,  men  are  still 
groping  in  darkness. 

Egyptian,  Epicurean,  Lamarckian,    Darwinian 


74       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

hypotheses  of  evolution  thrown  out,  what  shall  be 
the  next  phase  of  this  Protean  theory,  which  shall 
spring  up,  say  its  say,  flourish  its  little  day,  and 
die,  with  the  epitaph,  "Our  Ancestors'  Folly"? 
Two  mental  drifts  thrust  modern  thinking 
towards  Darwin's  conception  of  the  rise  of  terres- 
trial life  and  species.  One  of  these  drifts  is  indi- 
cated by  Herbert  Spencer;  viz.,  a  striving  to  pic- 
ture clearly  to  the  mind's  eye  the  modus  operandi 
of  the  rise  of  life  and  species.  "  The  special  crea- 
tion of  plants  and  animals,"  says  Spencer,  "seems 
a  satisfactory  hypothesis,  until  you  try  and  picture 
to  yourself  definitely  the  process  by  which  one  of 
them  is  brought  into  existence."  This  difficulty, 
some  seem  to  think,  is  lessened  by  lessening  the 
size  of  the  plant  or  animal  originated.  This  is 
utterly  fallacious.  Seek,  e.  g.,  to  picture  Huxley's 
hypothetical  animated  "  protoplasm "  originating 
from  "not living  matter,"  that  "  not  living  matter" 
being  operated  upon  by  "  physical  and  chemical 
conditions "  we  in  this  as^e  of  the  world  know 
nothing  about ;  and  I  doubt  whether  a  person 
can  "  picture  "  to  himself  the  process  of  the  rise 
of  life  on  the  earth,  any  more  clearly  than  by  the 


DARWINISM.  75 

special-creation  hypothesis  ;  we  are  thrown  into  a 
denser  fog.  Or  seek  to  "picture"  to  the  mind's 
eye  clearl}^  the  coming  together  of  the  atoms  of 
Darwin's  one  little  primordial  monad,  and  the 
"  breathing  of  life  into  it  by  the  Creator"  :  we  are 
just  as  much  at  a  loss  here  for  a  well-defined  men- 
tal "picture"  as  if  we  should  seek  ideally  to  rep- 
resent the  modus  operandi  of  the  creation  of  a 
full-sized  horse.  Not  in  the  bulk  of  the  life  ap- 
pearing, but  in  the  simple  appearance  of  life  at 
all  on  the  earth,  coming  out  from  its  lava  womb, 
is  where  the  knot  of  the  problem  lies.  Lessening 
the  bulk  of  the  embodied  life  appearing  does  not 
one  iota  lessen  the  difficulty  of  forming  a  clear 
mental  picture  of  its  method  of  rise.  Darwinism 
has  no  claim  to  favor  here. 

The  second  mental  drift  thrusting  the  to-day 
thinker  towards  Darwinism  is  that  so  stronij  at 
present,  and  intensified  by  the  recent  doctrine 
of  correlation  of  forces,  —  viz.,  the  spirit  of  gen- 
eralization ;  the  desire  to  refer  all  phenomena  to 
uniformly  operating,  irrational,  immanent  force  in 
matter,  to  unify,  under  law.  But  whether  we 
should  accept  this  dogma,  —  all  force  working  in 


76       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

the  universe  of  matter  is  irrational,  immanent 
force,  —  and  carry  this  back  even  to  that  excep- 
tional manifestation  of  power,  the  rise  of  terres- 
trial life  and  species,  as  a  prejudging  element 
of  our  scientific  formulating,  may  justly  1)e  ques- 
tioned. If  tliei-e  is  more  in  the  universe  than 
mere  matter  and  immanent,  irrational  force,  gen- 
uine science  will  not  without  reason  eliminate 
or  ignore  that  "  more,"  in  its  investigation  of  the 
origin  of  phenomena.  Both  the  original  pro- 
pounders  of  Darwinism,  Darwin  and  Wallace, 
concede  the  existence  of  this  "  more  "  ;  and  Hux- 
ley, in  his  ''  Lay  Sermons,"  says,  "  When  the 
materialists  stray  beyond  the  borders  of  their  path, 
and  beo-in  to  talk  about  there  bcinof  nothin<2r  else 
in  the  universe  but  matter  and  force,  and  neces- 
sary laws,  and  all  the  rest  of  their  'grenadiers,'  I 
decline  to  follow  them."  Says  Spencer,  "  The 
hypotheses  of  special  creation  and  development 
alike  recognize  an  inscrutable  cause  of  phe- 
nomena." -As  genuine  scientists,  then,  we  are 
not  to  blink  this  "more"  in  formulating  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe;  this  "more"  may 
have  significance  for  our  formulatino:.     We  are  to 


DARWINISM.  11 

rid  our  mind  of  prejudice  against  its  activity  in 
originating  phenomena;  we  are  not  to  prejudge, 
—  it  may  have  been  active  here,  a  producing  force 
here.  Nor  must  we  prejudge  the  methods  nor 
extent  of  its  activity ;  an  intelligent  force,  per- 
haps, this  "  more,"  and  it  may  have  operated 
through  some  general  law  in  the  introduction 
and  evolution  of  the  creatures  of  the  earth,  other 
than  by  that  of  "natural  selection," — by  some  law 
not  yet  discovered  by  us,  its  discovery  waiting 
a  Newton  in  biology. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  if  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe  are  referred  to  a  free  intelligence 
as  cause,  this  removes  uniformity  of  action  as 
now  seen  in  nature,  and  makes  science  an  im- 
possibility. This  intelligent  causal  power,  ever 
in  itself  abiding  the  same,  would,  in  its  ordinary 
operations,  be  as  thoroughly  uniform  as  mere 
immanent,  irrational  force.  On  special  occasions, 
indeed,  this  free-working  intelligence  may  exhibit 
more  of  its  contents  than  previously  manifested, 
and  this  wholly  unannounced ;  and  just  this  we 
lind  in  the  rise  of  life  and  species  in  fact :  vege- 
table   life,  a   new,   unique    thing,   rises   on   our 


78       THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

earth  ;  animal  life,  a  new,  unique  thing,  rises  on 
our  earth ;  species  rise  suddenly ;  and  human 
life,  a  new,  unique  thing,  rises  suddenly  on  our 
earth.  I  see  not  how  we  can  explain  the  facts  of 
terrestrial  life  as  exhibited  in  the  rock  record  so 
well  as  by  conceiving  of  Spencer's  "  inscrutable  " 
power  (by  all  conceded  as  working  on  our  globe) 
as  an  intelligent,  free  power.  This  conception  of 
the  all-working  force  unlocks  most  satisfactorily 
the  mysteries  in  the  history  of  terrestrial  life. 
Prof.  Le  Conte,  of  California  (a  scientist),  accepts, 
as  the  basis  of  the  explanation  of  the  past  rise  of 
terrestrial  life  and  species,  this  intelligent,  free 
power.  He  claims  that  if  Ave  admit  the  existence 
of  a  Deity  at  all,  the  only  possible  philosophical 
conception  is  this  :  God  ever  abides  in  the  uni- 
verse of  matter,  the  sustaining  and  ultimate  force 
of  its  continuance  and  phenomena.  This  in- 
dwelling, all-working,  intelligent,  free  power  acts 
ever  uniformly,  except  in  special  cases  when  it 
acts  in  higher  manifestations.  First  appears 
mere  matter,  then  a  higher  manifestation  of  the 
within  working  power  appears  in  crystallization, 
a  yet  higher  in  vegetable  life,  higher  yet  in  ani- 


DARWINISM.  79 

iiKil  life ;  and  onward  now  along  the  line  of  its 
operations,  rise  new  species ;  in  man  is  seen  its 
climax  of  terrestrial  working. 

Prof.  Le  Conte  illustrates  his  conception  of 
this  intelligent  power's  working  by  a  line.*  A 
straight  line,  continuous  for  some  time,  represents 
the  duration  of  the  existence  of  mere  primal 
undifferentiated  matter ;  a  little  protuberance  — 
elevation  —  the  beginnings  of  chemical  affinity ; 
then  follows  a  higher  for  crj^stallization,  —  "  the 
first  gropings  of  the  so-called  'vital  principle,'" 
as  Tyndall  designates  it ;  later,  and  a  higher 
appears  for  vegetable  life;  a  still  higher  for  ani- 
mal life  ;  farther  on  a  circle  rises  above  the  line, 
distinct  from  it,  a  separate  thing  lifted  out  of  the 
mere  cause-and-eflect  region  of  materialism  and 
instinct.  This  is  personal  man,  —  a  new,  unique 
product  of  the  all-producing,  intelligent  Worker, 
the  highest  manifestation  of  himself,  his  own  like- 
ness and  image  in  domination  over  the  earth  and 
its  creatures,  in  conscious,  free,  personal  individu- 
ality, moral  nature,  knowledge,  —  the  goal  tow- 
ards which,  from  the  first  rise  above  dead  matter, 

*Cut. 


80       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  V  AND   GENESIS. 

each  successive  upward  movement  tended  all  along 
the  geologic  geons.  The  goal  reached,  there  is 
nothing  beyond ;  the  creating  power  rested,  rests 
to-day,  the  creative  days  are  closed,  — it  is  Sab- 
bath now. 


ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  %\ 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

ANTIQUITY   OF   MAN    (EVIDENCES    OF)  . 

What  says  the  Bible,  what  says  science,  as  to 
the  time  of  man's  appearance  on  the  earth  ? 

Only  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  gives  any  hint 
on  the  matter;  viz.,  this,  —  man  appeared  on  the 
last  creative  day.  Science  is  at  one  with  this; 
says  man  geologically  is  very  recent,  —  appears 
among  the  latest,  perhaps  is  the  latest,  of  earth's 
creatures. 

The  Bible  and  science  so  accordant,  whence  so 
much  dust  about  the  era  of  man's  appearance  on 
the  earth  ? 

From  two  sources  :  — 

Firsts  The  unfounded  assumption  of  scientists. 

Second^  The  unfounded  assumptions  of  Bibli- 
cists. 

I  shall  first  examine  some  of  the  statements  of 
scientists. 


82       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

Until  within  thirty  j^ears,  geologists  generally 
maintiiined  that  traces  of  man  were  found  only  in 
the  very  latest  deposits;  e.  ^.,  superficial  soil, 
deltas,  rock  now  forming.  The  finding  of  arti- 
cles of  his  manufacture  in  cavern  deposits,  min- 
gling with  the  bones  of  the  (so-called)  extincts, 
—  e.  g.,  the  mammoth,  cave-bear,  cave-lion, — 
incited  suspicion  that  man  had  lived  longer  on  the 
earth  than  had  generally  been  supposed.  The 
period  of  these  extincts  was  regarded  as  much 
earlier  than  that  usually  allotted  man ;  the  mui- 
gling  of  his  remains  and  theirs  in  the  same  depos- 
its was  thought  indicative  that  he  had  lived  in 
their  period,  and  thus  man's  period  was  thrown 
back. 

A  second  class  of  facts  indicating  (as  claimed) 
a  high  antiquity  for  man  was  the  finding  of 
isolated  human  bones  in  peculiar  positions  :  for 
instance,  the  Guadaloupe  rock-embedded  skele- 
tons ;  the  pelvic  bone  found  at  Natchez,  on  the 
Mississippi,  at  the  foot  of  a  cliff,  loosely  mingling 
with  bones  of  extincts ;  the  bone  mentioned  by 
Affassiz  as  having  been  found  in  a  Florida  coral 
reef;  the  skeleton  found  buried  deeply  under  sue- 


ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  83 

cessive  forests  at  New  Orleans  :  the  Abbeville  jaw- 
bone ;  the  skull  found  in  California  deeply  embed- 
ded in  gold  drift,  under  basalt  rock. 

Again,  "Stretching  along  the  sides  of  many 
river  valleys,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe, 
are  certain  deposits  of  sand,  clay,  and  gravel, 
sometimes  more  than  a  hundred  feet,  seldom  less 
than  forty  feet  above  the  level  of  existing  streams. 
These  terraces  have  been  long  known  to  contain 
relics  of  man.  In  the  gravels  of  the  Ouse  and 
Waveney,  England,  of  the  Seine,  France,  but 
specially  of  the  Somme,  Picardy,  have  been  found 
flint  chips,  arrow  heads,  hatchets,  in  the  same 
layers  with  bones  of  the  mammoth  and  other 
extincts."  All  these  river  terraces  belong  to  one 
period,  a  period  claimed  to  be  much  prior  to  that 
formerly  allotted  man. 

These  three  classes  of  data  —  viz  ,  cavern  de- 
posits, isolated  human  bones,  river  terraces  —  are 
the  main  grounds  upon  which  geologists  base  their 
claim  for  man's  high  antiquity. 

Let  us  interrogate  these  three  witnesses. 

First,  Isolated  bones. 

The  isolated-bone  proof  of  man's  great  antiq- 


8'i       THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

uity  is  by  geologists  regarded  the  least  reliable. 
It  is  now  on  all  hands  conceded  that  unwarranted 
antiquity  has  been  claimed  for  some  of  these 
bones.  For  instance,  the  fossil  Gaudaloupe  man, 
referred  to  a  great  antiquity  by  Nott  and  Gliddon, 
is  now,  by  Prof.  Dana,  declared  to  be  a  Carib 
Indian,  and  not  more  than  two  or  three  centuries 
old.  So  completely  is  the  claim  of  great  antiquity 
for  these  skeletons  abandoned  now,  that  they  are 
never  in  our  day  even  mentioned  in  treatises  on 
the  antiquity  of  man. 

Agassiz,  by  estimates  from  the  present  rates  of 
deposition  of  coral,  claimed  for  the  Florida  bone 
an  antiquity  of  14,000  years.  But  Count  Por- 
tales,  its  finder,  now  declares  the  bone  was  not 
found  in  coral  rock  at  all,  "  but  in  a  fresh-water 
sandstone,  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Monroe,  Florida, 
associated  with  fresh-water  shells  of  species  still 
livino-  in  the  lake  ;  and  no  date  can  ])e  assiirned  for 
the  formation  of  that  deposit." 

The  Natchez  bone,  Lyell,  in  his  second  visit 
to  America,  pronounced  of  little  value.  Says 
Winchell,  "  From  being  the  relic  of  a  preglacial 
man,  it  suddenly  became  the  bone  of  a  red  Indian, 
perhaps  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  old." 


ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  85 

The  Abbeville  jaw-bone  is  a  bone  of  contention 
to  scientists  themselves,  and  we  may  therefore 
count  it  out. 

The  New  Orleans  skeleton,  buried  under  six- 
teen feet  of  river  mud  and  four  successive 
cypress  forests,  Dr.  Dowler  estimated  was  57,- 
000  years  old  ;  Lyell  approves  the  estimate.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  United  States  army  engineers, 
Humphreys  and  Abbot,  claim  that  the  ground 
on  which  New  Orleans  stands,  down  to  the  depth 
of  forty  feet,  instead  of  sixteen  feet,  has  been 
deposited  within  4,400  years ;  and  Dr.  Foster 
says  that  the  superimposed  wood,  regarded  by 
Dr.  Dowler  as  four  successive  cypress  forests, 
"  may  be  nothing  more  than  drift-wood  brought 
down  by  the  river,  which  became  embedded  in 
the  sediments."  Says  the  geologist  Fountaine, 
"The  Mississippi  sixty  years  ago  used  to  flow 
where  now  Tchoupitoulas  Street  is,  in  the  heart 
of  the  business  part  of  the  city,  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  from  the  present  shore.  The  river  at  New 
Orleans  is  from  one  hundred  and  sixty-two  to  one 
hundred  and  eighty-seven  feet  deep.  By  under- 
mining and  engulfing  its  banks,  with  everything 


86      THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

upon  them,  logs  tangled  in  vines  and  bedded  in 
mud,  cypress  stumps,  Indian  graves,  and  modern 
works  of  art  are  suddenly  swallowed  up  and 
buried,  at  all  depths  from  ten  to  one  hundred  and 
eighty-seven  feet."  In  view  of  all  this,  a  recent 
writer  on  the  New  Orleans  skeleton  says,  "To 
claim  50,000  years  for  it  is  provocative  of 
lauo-hter." 

Some  Californian  workmen  a  few  years  ago 
presented  Prof.  Whitney,  State  geologist,  with  a 
skull  claimed  to  have  been  found  one  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  below  the  surface,  covered  by  basalt 
rock.  The  skull  was  heralded  in  this  country 
and  in  Europe  as  a  veritable  preadamite  skull, 
lying  geologically  periods  lower  than  any  other 
yet  discovered  human  relic.  It  appears  now  that 
the  workmen  hoaxed  the  professor  as  to  where 
they  found  the  skull.  Even  Quatrefages  says, 
"The  most  serious  doubts  exist  as  to  the  antiquity 
of  the  specimen,  which  seems  to  have  been  found 
in  disturbed  ground." 

The  isolated-bone  proof  of  man's  great  antiq- 
uity thus  utterly  breaks  down.  Geologists  speak 
now  little  of  it. 


ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  87 

Second,  Cavern  deposits. 

We  can  tell  nothing  from  the  caverns  them- 
selves, nor  from  their  deposits,  as  to  their  geologic 
period.  The  special  argument  urged  for  the  great 
antiquity  of  their  human  relics  is  the  mingling  of 
these  relics  with  the  bones  of  the  extincts ;  and 
here,  I  claim,  is  one  of  the  unwarranted  assump- 
tions of  scientists.  Instead  of  makinj?  this  min- 
gling  and  coexistence  of  man  and  the  mammoth 
a  reason  for  immediately  thrusting  man  back  a 
geological  period  earlier  than  previously  allotted 
him,  into  the  mammoth  period,  why  is  not  this  just 
as  good  cause,  this  mingling  of  relics,  for  bringing 
the  mammoth  and  his  congeners  forward  a  jreo- 
logical  period  into  the  period  of  man,  and  thus 
make  the  epoch  of  the  mammoth  greatly  less* 
distant  from  our  day  than  we  had  previously 
supposed  it? 

The  key  to  the  problem  of  antiquity  of  the 
human  relics  of  the  caverns  lies  in  the  answer 
to  the  query.  When  did  the  mammoth  and  his 
fellows  live  ? 

Third,  And  as  the  terrace  problem  now  stands, 
its  only  proof  of  man's   great  antiquity,  is    this 


88       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

same  mingling  in  these  terrace  deposits  of  human 
relics  with  the  bones  of  the  extincts.  For  the 
solution,  therefore,  of  both  the  cavern  and  the 
terrace  problems,  I  shall  now  address  myself  to 
the  solution  of  the  query,  When  did  the  mam- 
moth and  his  fellows  live? 

The  old  tenet  of  the  great  antiquity  of  the 
mammoth  epoch  is  being  examined  in  these  later 
years,  and  a  great  reaction  is  taking  place ;  geol- 
ogists now  brinof  down  the  mammoth  to  a  com- 
paratively  recent  date.  Messrs.  Prestwich  and 
Falconer,  of  England,  began  this  work  twelve 
years  ago.  They  brought  forward  the  cavern 
deposits  containing  bones  of  the  extincts  an 
entire  geological  period,  from  the  Bowlder  Clay 
to  the  post-Pliocene ;  and  the  justness  of  this  is 
now  by  geologists  conceded. 

The  remains  of  the  mammoth  in  America  are 
found  in  superficial  deposits,  in  situation  and  con- 
dition of  preservation  indicative  of  their  compar- 
atively recent  extinction.  "  Almost  any  swampy 
bit  of  ground,"  says  Prof.  Shaler,  "  in  Ohio  or 
Kentucky  contains  traces  of  the  mammoth.  At 
Big  Bone  Lick,  Kentucky,  the  remains   are    so 


ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  89 

well  preserved,  as  to  seem  not  much  more  ancient 
than  the  buffiilo  bones  which  are  found  above 
them."  Prof.  Winchell  says  he  has  "seen  the 
bones  of  the  mammoth  embedded  in  peat,  at 
depths  so  shallow  that  he  could  readily  believe 
the  animals  to  have  occupied  the  country  during 
its  possession  by  the  Indians."  Says  Lyell, 
"  That  the  mammoth  was  exterminated  l)y  the 
arrows  of  the  Indian  hunters  is  the  first  idea 
presented  to  the  mind  of  almost  every  natural- 
ist." In  accordance  with  this  view  of  Winchell 
and  Lyell,  we  find  an  Indian  tradition  of  the 
existence  of  the  mastodon,  seemingly  earlier  ex- 
tinct than  the  mammoth:  "that  they  were  often 
seen,  that  they  fed  on  the  boughs  of  a  species 
of  lime-tree,  and  that  to  sleep,  they  did  not  lie 
down,  but  leaned  against  a  tree." 

In  Europe,  also,  bones  of  the  mammoth  have 
been  found  in  peat  deposits,  —  one  of  the  most 
recent  of  all  superficial  accumulations,  and  even 
now  forming.  For  instance,  two  perfect  heads  of 
the  mammoth  were  brought  to  light  by  excava- 
tions made  for  a  railway  in  1847,  at  Holyhead, 
England.     They  were  found  in  a  bed  of  peat  three 


90       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

feet  thick.  Lyell  thinks  that  these  individuals 
must  have  perished  at  a  comparatively  recent 
date. 

And  the  tendency  at  present  is  to  bring  down 
much  nearer  our  own  time  than  formerly  all  the 
(so-called)  extincts  of  the  cavern  and  terrace 
epochs  ;  some  are  even  identified  with  species  now 
living.  Having  thoroughly  canvassed  the  evi- 
dence, and  summing  up  on  this  matter,  Southall 
says,  "The  cave-horse,  the  cave-bear,  the  cave- 
lion,  the  cave-hyffina,  are  still  living ;  the  cave- 
lion  is  mentioned  historically  even  in  Europe  a 
few  centuries  before  our  era ;  wild  horses  scoured 
the  plains  of  Russia  a  few  centuries  ago ;  the 
urus  survived  to  the  sixteenth  century,  the  aur- 
ochs still  survives  in  Russia ;  the  reindeer  is 
traced  down  in  Europe  to  the  twelfth  century ; 
the  great  elk  survived  equally  as  late  ;  the  masto- 
don, mammoth,  and  woolly  rhinoceros  are  found 
under  circumstances  that  imply  their  existence 
only  a  few  thousand  years  ago." 

Such  is  the  present  condition  of  the  problem  of 
the  epoch  of  the  (so-called)  extincts  of  the  caverns 
and  terraces,  with  whose  bones  human  relics  rain- 


ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  91 

gle,  and  which  mingling  is  the  grand  stock  argu- 
ment, in  these  latter  years,  for  man's  great  an- 
tiquity. In  the  light  of  recent  discoveries  and 
readjustments  of  data,  this  claimed  great  antiquity 
dwindles  down  to  a  few  thousand  years.  No  need 
to  thrust  man  back  tens  of  thousands  of  years, 
from  any  data  given  us  in  cavern  or  terrace  de- 
posits, —  only  a  very  few  thousand  years  answers 
every  demand. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association  for 
the  Promotion  of  Science,  last  year,  1879,  Daw- 
kins,  a  very  high  authority  in  these  matters,  said, 
"There  is  no  proof  that  the  animals  with  whose 
remains  man's  relics  are  commingled  are  of  ex- 
treme antiquity."  Prof.  Dawson  ("Earth  and 
Man,"  295)  claims  that  the  St.  Acheul  gravels  of 
the  Sommf  can  "  scarcely  exceed  4,000  years." 


92       THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN   (CONTINUED).    YEAR 
MEASURE  IN  GEOLOGY. 

In  the  attempt  to  measure  in  years  the  interval 
between  us  and  the  terrace  epoch,  by  geological 
data,  appear  some  of  the  ungrounded  assumptions 
of  scientists. 

Says  Lyell,  "The  terraces  are  post-Pliocene; 
intervening  between  us  and  that  is  the  Recent,  — 
the  epoch  of  the  deltas,  peat,  Swiss  lake  vil- 
lages. Determine  how  many  years  have  been 
occupied  in  the  formation  of  the  deltas  or  peat,  or 
the  era  of  the  Swiss  lake  villages,  —  then,  3'et 
back  of  that  lived  the  terrace  man." 

Further,  ''  Some  post-Tertiary  deposits,  on  the 
coast  of  Norway,  of  marine  formation,  are  now  " 
(Lyell  claims)  "elevated  above  the  sea  six  hun- 
dred  feet.      To    attain    such    elevation,   allowins: 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAX.  93 

two  and  a  half  feet  rise  per  century''  (which  Lyell 
regards  large),  "requires  24,000  years."  He 
claims  this  rise  has  mostly  taken  place  since  the 
terrace  period. 

I  shall  examine  Lyell's  data. 

Firsts  Deltas. 

The  Mississippi  delta  is  the  one  of  which  most 
use  has  been  made  in  estimating  time.  Lyell 
demands  for  the  formation  of  this  delta  "  proba- 
bly more  than  100,000  years."  On  the  contrary, 
Messrs.  Humphreys  and  Abbot,  of  the  government 
survey,  have  thoroughly  explored  it,  and  demand 
for  its  formation  only  4,400  years;  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  even  this  diminished  time  is  required. 
Singular  elevations  at  the  bottom  of  the  orulf  near 
the  delta,  perhaps  in  the  delta  itself,  known  as 
"mud  lumps,"  occur  with  frequency,  by  means  of 
which  acres  in  extent  are  sometimes  raised,  often 
above  the  surface  of  the  water.  Allowance  must 
be  made,  shortening  indefinitely  the  estimate  of 
4,400  years,  for  the  material  added  to  the  delta  by 
these  "mud  lumps." 

The  eminent  French  naturalists,  Dolomieu, 
Cuvier,  and  Beaumont,  claim  that  a  few  thousand 


94        THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE   DA  V  AND   GENESIS. 

years  suifice  to  form  all  the  deltas  in  the  world. 
Beaumont  estimates  the  Mississippi  delta  at  1,300 
years. 

These  discrepancies  of  estimates  among  sci- 
entists declare  very  emphatically  that  they  are 
themselves  utterly  afloat,  and  their  estimates  in 
years  of  the  antiquity  of  man  from  delta  data 
wholly  unreliable. 

Second,  Swiss  lake  villages. 

Geologists  have  sought  to  determine  approxi- 
mately, in  years,  from  estimates  on  present  lake 
depositions,  the  era  of  the  submerged  villages. 
These  estimates  are  as  little  reliable  as  those  of 
the  deltas.  But  the  extreme  antiquit}'^  claimed 
for  these  villages  is  not  above  3,000  or  4,000 
years ;   we  may  therefore  pass  them. 

Third,  Peat  formations. 

The  French  naturalist,  Perthes,  estimates  the 
rate  of  the  growth  of  peat  anciently  in  the 
Somme  Valley  at  one  inch  a  century.  The  de- 
posit is  thirty  feet  deep,  and  at  Perthes's  estimate 
demands  30,000  years.  But  l^efore  this  peat 
began  to  be  laid  down,  the  flint-knife  men  of  the 
terraces   were    fishino^   in   the    river.     This    lonor 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  1)5 

outlook  into  the  past,  forced  upon  us  by  Perthes's 
estimate,  even  Lyell  hesitates  to  acce[)t.  Facts 
utterly  refute  it.  In  the  peat  are  trunks  of  trees 
standing  erect  where  they  grew,  birches  and 
alders  three  feet  high,  also  prostrate  trunks  of 
oaks  four  feet  in  diameter.  According  to  Per- 
thes's estimate,  it  required  a  century  to  cover 
up  these  stumps  and  prostrate  trunks  one  inch ; 
but  at  the  end  of  the  century,  where  would 
have  been  all  the  uncovered  thirty-five  inches  of 
the  stumps,  the  forty-seven  inches  of  the  trunks? 
liotted  off.  The  estimate  is  absurd.  It  would 
have  required  3, GOO  years  to  cover  the  stumps, 
4,800  years  to  cover  the  trunks  :  neither  stumps 
nor  trunks  would  have  waited  so  long.  On  the 
contrary,  in  Irish  bogs  an  increase  of  peat  of  two 
inches  a  year  has  been  observed,  —  sixteen  feet 
instead  of  an  inch  a  century.  Two  centuries 
would  thus  lay  down  all  the  peat  in  the  Somme 
Valley.  And  the  Frenchman  D'Archiac  tells  us 
that  it  is  estimated  that  in  the  upper  valley  of 
the  Somme,  peat  to-day  grows  at  the  rate  of 
eleven  and  one  half  feet  a  century ;  this  rate  of 
deposition  would  require  only  three  centuries  for 


96        THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS, 

the  work  for  which  Perthes  demanded  36,000 
years.  But  the  fact  is,  the  peat  growth  depends 
so  much  on  attending  conditions  —  the  kind  of 
peat,  its  place  of  growth,  the  climate  —  that  peat 
deiDositions  give  us  no  reliable  data  for  year-meas- 
ure estimates ;  it  is  absolutely  of  no  value  as 
datum  in  estimating  in  years  man's  antiquity.  A 
boat  containing  bricks  was  found  under  the  lowest 
layer  of  the  Somme  peat,  but  there  were  no 
bricks  in  Gaul  till  the. Roman  era. 

Fourth,  Elevated  Norway  formations. 

Lyell  makes  an  attempt  to  measure  in  years  the 
recent  period  by  estimates  on  the  coast  of  Nor- 
way ;  he  claims  a  present  rate  of  rise  of  two  and 
one  half  feet  a  century.  He  finds  shells  of  the 
post-Tertiary  period  six  hundred  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  requiring  to  raise  them  to  such 
elevation,  at  the  present  rate  of  rise,  24,000  years. 
But  at  the  beginning  of  this  period  the  terrace 
man  lived. 

Since  LyelFs  statement.  Prof.  Kjerulf,  of 
Christiana,  has  made  the  government  geological 
survey  of  the  N(;rway  coast,  and  carefully  exam- 
ined the  raised  beaches  and  terraces,  and  declares 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  97 

Lyell's  statement  to  be  utterly  without  founda- 
tion. 

First,  he  says  the  uppermost  limit  of  post- 
Tertiary  rise  is  only  sixty  instead  of  six  hun- 
dred feet,  reducing  Lyell's  24,000  to  2,400 
3'^ears. 

Second,  the  abrupt  edges  of  the  terraces,  sepa- 
rated by  level  areas,  indicate  sudden  elevations, 
succeeded  by  periods  of  rest,  utterly  destroying 
all  data  for  computation  of  time. 

Third,  he  declares  that  the  coast  is  not  now 
rising,  but  that  this  is  a  stationary  period ;  Lyell's 
two  and  one  half  feet  rise  per  century,  the  basis  of 
his  entire  calculation,  is  a  myth. 

Thus  bursts,  at  the  touch  of  the  finger  of  a 
more  exact  science,  Lyell's  24,000-years  Norway 
bubble ! 

By  this  hasty  glance  at  the  most  trusted  data 
by  which  men  of  science  have  attempted  to 
estimate  in  years  the  era  of  man's  introduc- 
tion upon  the  earth,  we  see  that  all  is  simply 
guess:  there  is  nothing  assured,  reliable;  it  is 
not  science,  —  precise  knowledge.  And  we  be- 
hold   again   on    the    plains    of   guess    what   was 


98         THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

anciently  seen  on  the  plains  of  Shinar,  —  a 
Babel  of  confusion,  men  using  a  gibberish  which 
to  each  other  conveys  no  knowledge,  and  from 
which  nobody  else  can  gather  anything  but  con- 
fusion. 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  99 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE    ANTIQUITY   OF   MAN    (CONTINUED).       BIBLICAL 
CHRONOLOGY. 

Theologians  have  customarily  claimed  that  the 
Bible  gives  us  data  by  which  we  may  determine 
with  close  approximation,  in  years,  the  era  of 
man's  appearance  on  the  earth;  also,  that  Usher's 
date  is  the  Bible  date.     I  deny  both. 

That  the  Bible  gives  us  no  data  for  estimating 
man's  era  with  certitude  of  a  close  approximation, 
and  that  Usher's  date  is  a  mere  human  estimate, 
wholly  unreliable,  a  statement  of  the  "  Oxford 
Chronological  Tables "  indicates.  Say  these 
tables,  "  Chronologers  have  piled  system  upon 
system,  Avithout  adding  much  to  our  stock  of 
knowledge  respecting  the  remote  ages  of  antiq- 
uity. Thus,  for  example,  there  are  not  less  than 
three  hundred  diflerent  dates  assigned  as  the  era 


100      THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DA  Y  AND   GENESIS. 

of  creation,  varying,  in  their  extremes,  not  less 
than  3,000  years." 

I  have  examined  a  list  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  different  estimates  from  Bible  data  of 
man's  era,  by  as  many  diH'erent  scholars,  each 
estimate  different  from  all  the  others ;  the 
extremes,  6,984  B.  C.  and  3,483  B.  C.,— one 
estimate  more  than  double  that  of  the  other ; 
and  intervening  between  these  were  the  one  hun- 
dred and  eighteen  other  estimates.  This  clearly 
declares,  as  also  the  "  Oxford  Tables,"  that  the 
Bible  o-ives  us  no  data  for  estimatino-  with  close 
approximation,  in  years,  man's  era. 

Query,  then,  what  becomes  of  the  Biblical  gen- 
ealogical tables  carrying  us  back  to  Adam  ? 

There  comes  of  them  all  that  ever  was  intended 
to  come  of  them,  all  that  ever  legitimately  can 
come  of  them,  viz.,  ability  to  trace  family  descent. 
Thus  far  they  are  reliable ;  but  use  them  as  exact 
data  for  chronological  estimates,  they  are  used  for 
a  purpose  for  which  they  \vere  never  intended  — 
are  wholly  unfit. 

Says  Pritchard,  "The  omission  of  some  gen- 
erations  in   Oriental  genealogies  is  a  very  ordi- 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  IQl 

naiy  thing,  the  object  of  the  genealogy  being 
sufficiently  answered  by  inserting  only  the  con- 
spicuous  and  celebrated  names  which  connect  the 
individual  Avith  his  remote  ancestry."  Eichhorn 
and  Michael  is  note  the  same.  This  sets  us  utterly 
afloat !  Who  will  tell  us  where  the  omissions  are 
in  the  long  genealogical  lists  of  Genesis,  and  how 
many  centuries  these  omissions  represent  ? 

Further,  "  The  Samaritan  Bible  has  a  difterent 
set  of  dates  from  the  Hebrew  copies,  and  both 
from  the  Septuagint,  and  all  these  from  the  Ethi- 
opic  version ;  and  this  not  merely  in  one  text,  but 
the  discrepancy  runs  through  nearly  the  entire 
genealogy.  The  Hebrew,  Samaritan,  and  Sep- 
tuagint versions,  in  giving  the  ages  of  the  patri- 
archs before  Abraham,  vary  in  the  ao:ijre2:ate 
about  1,500  years  " 

On  the  whole  matter  of  Bible  chronology, 
Pritchard  says,  "The  Hebrew  chronology  may  be 
computed  with  accuracy  to  the  era  of  the  building 
of  the  Temple,  or  at  least  to  the  division  of  the 
tribes,  —  tenth  century  B,  C.  In  the  interval 
between  that  date  and  the  arrival  of  Abraham  in 
Palestine,   Hebrew   chronology  cannot   be  ascer- 


102      THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AAD   GENESIS. 

tiiiued  with  exactness,  but  ina}''  be  computed  with 
near  approximation  to  the  truth.  Beyond  Abra- 
ham, we  can  never  know  how  many  centuries,  nor 
even  how  many  chiliads  of  years,  may  have  ehipsed 
since  the  first  man  of  clay  received  the  image  of 
God  and  the  breath  of  life.  Still,  as  the  thread  of 
genealogy  has  been  traced,  though  probably  with 
many  and  great  intervals,  the  whole  duration  of 
time  from  the  beginning  must  apparently  have 
been  within  moderate  bounds,  and  by  no  means 
so  wide  and  vast  as  the  Indian  and  Egyptian  fabu- 
lists assert."  Pritchard  might  now  have  added, 
"  some  geological  fabulists  assert." 

Says  Bunsen,  "  The  study  of  the  Scriptures 
has  long  convinced  me  that  there  is  no  connected 
chronology  prior  to  Solomon." 

Says  Conant,  "  I  do  not  think  we  have  exact  and 
full  data  for  determining  with  absolute  certainty 
the  numl)er  of  years  from  Adam  to  Abraham." 

I  regard  these  statements  of  Pritchard,  Bunsen, 
and  Conant  the  correct  view  of  early  Bible  chro- 
nology ;  viz.,  the  Bible  does  not  give  us  data  from 
which  with  certainty  we  can  determine  the  length 
of  the  period  intervening  between  Adam  and 
Abraham .     Pritchard's  other  statement  I  rejjard 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAM.  103 

also  correct ;  viz. ,  the  Bible  genealogies  impress  us 
with  the  idea  that  the  whole  duration  of  man's 
existence  upon  the  earth  is  contained  within 
moderate  limits.  That  this  is  so,  the  recentness 
of  the  rise  of  the  arts  and  sciences  in  their  fulness 
indicates  ;  as  al:<o  the  narrow  limits  of  all  assured 
national  chronologies:  e.  g.,  India,  twelfth  cen- 
tury B.  C. ;  Assyria,  sixteenth  century  B.  C.  ; 
Babylonia  or  Chaldea,  twenty-second  century 
B.  C.  ;  China,  twenty-fourth  century  B.  C.  ;  Tyre, 
twenty-seventh  century  B.  C. ;  Egypt  (the  utmost 
claim  of  Lepsius  for  its  monuments),  thii-ty-fifth 
century  B.  C.  All  these  come  within  Usher's 
date  for  Adam,  4,000  B.  C.  But  even  these  dates, 
contracted  as  they  are,  are  by  no  means  proven. 
Says  the  Egyptologist,  Wilkinson,  *'No  certain 
era  has  been  established  in  earl}^  Egyptian  chro- 
nology." Says  Lyell  ("Antiquity  of  Man,"  380), 
"  True  history  and  chronology  are  the  creation,  as 
it  were,  of  yesterday.  Thus  the  first  Olympiad  is 
generally  regarded  as  the  earliest  date  on  which 
we  can  rely  in  the  past  annals  of  mankind,  — 
only  776  B.  C. ;  and  no  ancient  monuments  and 
inscriptions  seem  to  claim  a  higher  antiquity  than 
fifteen  centuries  before  Christ." 


104    THE  SCIENCE    OF  THE  DA  V  AND   GENESIS. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

THE    ANTIQUITY   OF   MAN    (CONCLUDED).       PRESENT 
CONDITION    OF    THE    PROBLEM. 

There  is  at  present  a  decided  and  growing 
tendency  among  scientists  to  contract  greatly 
man's  antiquity.  We  see  this  tendency  in  what 
Huxley  said  at  the  last  year's  (1879)  meeting  of 
the  British  Association  for  the  Promotion  of 
Science.  After  the  president  of  the  Anthropolo- 
gical Section,  Dr.  Tylor,  had  read  a  paper  claim- 
ing a  high  antiquity  for  man,  urging  the  stock 
argument,  the  stone  implements  of  the  Somme 
terraces,  Prof.  Huxley  rose  and  said,  "  I  have  a 
Avarning  for  anthropologists.  Few  are  aware  of 
the  immense  changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the 
geological  formations  of  large  parts  of  Europe 
during  the  historic  period.  No  one  can  show  that 
similar  changes  may  not  have  taken   place  with 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  105 

as  great  rapidity  in  the  Somme  Valley ;  and  the 
implements  found  in  the  terraces  cannot  be  relied 
on  to  prove  a  great  antiquity  of  man."  This  com- 
ing in  such  a  place,  from  such  a  man  as  Prof. 
Huxley,  is  highly  significant. 

It  has  already  been  shown  in  this  volume  that 
evidence  of  man's  antiquity  from  cavern  and  ter- 
race deposits  dwindles  down  to  a  very  few  thou- 
sand years. 

The  tendency  of  science  in  recent  years  is  also 
greatly  to  contract  the  time  intervening  between 
us  and  the  glacial  epoch.  The  glacial  epoch  has 
been  set  back  from  our  day  as  far  as  1,280,000,- 
000  years.  Lyell  fixed  it  prior  to  us  800,000 
years ;  later,  he  said  200,000  years. 

The  determination  of  the  time  intervening 
between  us  and  the  close  of  the  glacial  epoch  is 
a  vital  element  in  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
the  antiquity  of  man,  as  that  problem  in  attained 
facts  now  stands.  All  relics  of  man  yet  discov- 
ered, whether  in  America  or  Europe,  lie  on  this 
side  of  the  glacial  or  drift  epoch ;  determine  when 
that  epoch  closed,  and  we  can  say.  As  facts  now 
stand,  man  did  not  reach  back  of  that  date;  he 


106     "J^HE  SCIENCE    OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

might  have  appeared  many  years  on  this  side  of 
it. 

There  is  but  little  evidence  of  man's  great 
antiquity  in  America.  The  stone  implements 
found  in  California  in  auriferous  gravels  covered 
with  basalt  rock,  however  deep,  give  us  no 
proof  of  immense  antiquity  for  man,  as  these 
basaltic  outflows  are  recent  phenomena,  —  are 
post-glacial. 

Geologists  relegate  the  cavern  and  terrace 
deposits  to  the  same  geologic  period.  Lj'^ell  de- 
clares all  these  deposits  bearing  human  relics  to 
be  post-glacial,  whether  found  in  England  or  else- 
where. These  teri'ace  deposits  in  England  are  so 
related  to  contiguous  glacial  deposits  that  indispu- 
tably they  are  the  later  formation,  —  are  post- 
glacial;  e.  ^.,  the  Ouse  at  Bedford,  the  Hoxne  at 
Diss  (Lyell,  "  Antiquity,"  164,  166).  And  of 
the  Somme  Valley  gravels,  Winchell  says  ("Pre- 
Adamitcs,"  425),  "It  appears  to  demonstration 
that  the  entire  river  valley  was  excavated  after 
the  glacial  drift  was  laid  down.  The  valley  is 
cut  through  the  glacial  drift  and  into  the  chalk. 
But  the  flint-bearing  gravels   are  still   more   re- 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MA IV.  IQ? 

cent,  having  l^een  deposited  along  the  chalk 
slopes  of  the  valley."  As  Winchell  here  allows  a 
period  to  intervene  between  the  drift  and  the  lad- 
ing down  of  the  relic-bearing  gravels  of  the  ter- 
•  races  long  enough  to  erode  the  drift  and  chalk,  so 
Prof.  Dana  claims  that  a  short  geological  period, 
which  he  names  the  "Champlain,"  intervened 
between  the  glacial  and  terrace  periods  ("  Geol- 
ogjs"  558). 

Principal  Dawson,  as  Lyell,  makes  all  the  cav- 
ern and  terrace  deposits  post-glacial  ("  Earth  and 
Man,"  283).  The  British  archaeologist,  Evans,  at 
the  1877  meeting  of  the  Geological  Society,  said 
he  had  not  met  wath  any  evidence  of  man's  pres- 
ence in  glacial  or  pre-glacial  times.  Says  Winchell 
("Pre- Adamites,"  425),  "The  general  tenor  of  the 
evidence  connected  with  the  occurrence  of  human 
remains  proclaims  everywhere  the  advent  of  man 
in  Europe  to  have  been  subsequent  to  the  gen- 
eral glaciation  ;  but  it  happened  during  the  proo-- 
ress  of  the  disappearance  of  the  glaciers.  He 
was  an  inhabitant  of  France  early  in  the  Cham- 
plain  period,  while  the  rivers  were  still  swollen 
from  the  meltinof  snows." 


108      THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE   DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

When  I  say  that  man  is  "post-glacial,"  it  is  in 
the  sense  of  being  posterior  to  the  grand  submer- 
gence of  the  bind  in  the  waters  of  the  oceans  which 
took  place  both  in  America  and  Europe  (break- 
ing up  the  grand  ice  sheet  so  extensively  cover- 
inc:  the  land  as  an  encasement  during  the  ijlacial 
period  proper),  and  its  subsequent  elevation; 
local  glaciers  on  a  contracted  scale  yet  remain- 
ing. 

Even  the  extremist  Haeckel,  in  his  conjecturet^ , 
claims  no  antiquity  for  language-speaking  man 
higher  than  the  glacial  epoch  ("Creation,"  II.  18). 
And  Prof.  Dawkins,  at  the  meeting  of  the  British 
Association,  1878,  said,  "Tiiere  is  no  proof  of  any 
kind  that  man  is  pre-glacial " ;  with  which  Hux- 
ley at  the  same  meeting  concurred,  adding,  "  And 
recollect  that  drift  is  only  the  scum  of  the  earth's 
surface." 

Geikie,  indeed,  in  his  ''Great  Ice  Age,"  puts 
forth  claims  for  man's  pre-glacial  existence,  but 
gives  us  no  facts  to  sustain  his  position,  except 
that  a  human  fibula  had  just  been  found  at  the 
writing  of  his  book  (1873),  under  "stiff  glacial 
clay."     The  "human  fibula  "  has  recently,  before 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  109 

the  British  Association,  by  Prof.  Busk,  its  dis- 
coverer, been  declared  the  bone  of  a  bear ! 

In  science  the  matter  of  man's  antiquity  to-day 
stands  thus  :  Some  extremists  claim  for  man  an 
existence  during  the  glacial  epoch  ;  authority  and 
facts  declare  all  relics  of  man  post-glacial. 

The  great  question  thus  is  :  When  closed  the 
glacial  epoch,  — how  long  since  the  Drifts 

Prof.  Andrews,  of  Chicago,  from  observations 
on  our  northern  lakes,  declares  his  belief  that  "  the 
total  time  of  all  the  deposits  since  the  glacial 
epoch  is  somewhere  between  5,300  and  7,500 
years." 

Careful  observations  have  been  made  by  Prof. 
Winchell  at  St,  Anthony's  Falls,  on  the  Mississippi, 
on  the  length  of  the  chasm  worn  and  the  present 
rate  of  wear.  The  mean  result  of  the  different 
estimates  for  the  close  of  the  glacial  epoch  was 
8,859  years.  These  observations  are  considered 
by  some  the  most  reliable  yet  made  in  attempts 
to  solve  this  problem. 

French  savants  have  been  seeking  a  solution  of 
this  problem.  M.  de  Ferry,  from  observations 
on  the  deposits  of  the  Saone,  gives  an  interval 


110     THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

from  our  day  to  the  glacial  epoch  of  9,000  or 
10,000  years.  M.  Arcelin,  from  estimates  on  the 
same  data,  makes  this  interval  6,750  years.  M. 
Kerviler,  taking  as  data  the  alluvial  deposits  of  the 
Loire,  makes  the  interval  6,000  years.  Of  this 
latter  estimate  Quatrefages  says,  "  This  represents 
a  very  moderate  antiquity,  and  corresponds  almost 
entirely  with  the  dates  of  Manetho."  Upon  a  re- 
view of  the  entire  facts  yet  attained  by  science 
auxiliary  to  the  solution  of  this  problem,  we  have 
this  :  All  relics  of  man  yet  found  are  this  side  the 
glacial  epoch ;  the  interval  separating  us  from 
the  glacial  epoch  is  from  6,000  to  10,000  years ; 
the  flint-implement  man  of  the  terraces  may  not 
have  appeared  immedintely  at  the  close  of  the 
glacial  epoch,  —  Dana  claims  the  "  Champlain  " 
ei30ch  intervened. 

In  his  work  just  issued  ("Pre-Adamites,"  473, 
431),  Winchell  says,  "Prehistoric  Europeans,  so 
far  as  inductively  known,  were  post-glacial ;  I  dis- 
cover no  valid  ground  whatever  for  the  oiDinion 
that  the  Stone  Age  in  Europe  began  more  than 
2,500  or  3,000  years  B.  C." 

Man  did  not  originate  in  Europe,  and  we  must 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  HI 

allow  some  time  for  the  migration  of  the  Asiatic 
man  from  his  primitive  habitat,  before  he  began 
chipping  flint  in  the  valley  of  the  Somme.  This 
time  must  be  added  to  the  age  of  the  flint  im[)le- 
ments,  but  this  does  not  necessarily  demand  a  very 
protracted  period. 

These  latest  and  most  reliable  utterances  of  sci- 
ence as  to  traces  of  man's  appearance  on  the  earth, 
—  how  like  the  utterance  of  the  Bible,  so  far  as  we 
may  venture  to  conjecture  anything  from  its  data  ! 
I  have  ah'eady  indicated  the  unreliability  of  esti- 
mates in  year  measure,  both  in  geology  and  early 
Bible  chronology  ;  but  taking  the  most  reliable 
estimates  in  both  these  provinces  for  what  they 
may  be  worth,  they  strikingly  harmonize.  Says 
science,  "Not  earlier  than  from  6,000  to  10,000 
years  prior  to  the  present  day  do  I  find  any  trace 
of  man  on  the  earth  ;  from  my  data  he  cannot 
have  appeared  earlier,  — he  may  have  appeared 
later."  The  Septuagint  (Mai's  edition)  makes 
Adam's  date  from  our  day  7,411  years;  Hebrew 
Bible,  5,945  j^ears  ;  another  Biblical  estimate  gives 
us  8,863  years.  (See  a- very  much  more  liberal 
Biblical    chronology,    as    estimated    by    Crawford 


112      THE.    SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

("Patriarchal  Dynasties"),  quoted  by  Winchell 
("Pre- Adamites,"  449)  :  the  period  between  Abra- 
ham and  Adam  is  10,500  years;  Adam's  date, 
14,381  B.  C.) 

This  very  moderate  antiquity  of  man,  and  the 
fact  that  the  earliest  fossil  man  does  not  differ  in 
species  nor  variety  from  man  of  the  present, 
militate  strongly  against  Darwinism.  Dawson 
("  Earth  and  Man,"  356),  after  saying,  "Man  is  a 
very  recent  animal,  dating  no  further  back  in  geo- 
logical time  than  the  post-glacial,"  says,  "  Further, 
inasmuch  as  the  oldest  known  remains  of  man  oc- 
cur along  with  those  of  animals  which  still  exist, 
and  the  majority  of  which  are  probably  not  of  older 
date,  there  is  but  slight  probability  that  any  much 
older  human  remains  will  ever  be  Ibund.  The 
Engis  skull  is  perhaps  the  oldest  known  human 
skull.  This  fossil  Belgian  man  is  believed  to  have 
lived  before  the  mammoth  and  the  cave-bear  had 
passed  away,  yet  he  does  not  belong  to  an  extinct 
species  or  even  variety  of  man." 

Further,  Pictct  catalogues  ninety-eight  species 
of  mammals  which  inhabited  Europe  in  the  post- 
glacial  period.     Of   these,  fifty-seven    still    exist 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  MAN.  113 

unchanged,  and  the  remainder  have  disappeared. 
Not  one  can  be  shown  to  have  been  modified  into 
a  new    form,    though    some    of  them    have    Ix'cn 
obliged,  by  changes  of  temperature  an  1  other  con- 
ditions, to  remove  mto  distant    and   now  widely 
separated  regions.    Further,  it  would  seem  that  all 
the  existing  European  mammals  extended  backjn 
2:eolo2:ical   time   at   least  as  far  as   man,   so   that 
since  the  post-glacial  period  no  new  species  have 
been  introduced  in   any  way.     Here   Ave   have   a 
series  of  focts  of  the  most  profound  significance. 
Fifty-seven  parallel  lines  of  descent  have  in  Eu- 
rope run  on  along  with  man,  fiom  the  post-glacial 
period,  without  change  or  material  modification  of 
any  kind.     Some  of  them  extend  without  change 
even  further  back.     Thus  man  and  his  companion 
mammals  present  a  series  of  lines,  not  converging 
as  if  they  pointed  to  some   connnon   progenitor, 
but  strictly  parallel  to  each  other.     In  other  words, 
if  they  are  derived  forms,  their  point  of  derivation 
from  a  common  type  is  pushed  back  infinitely  in 
o-eological   time ;    but    negativing    such    primeval 
derivation  of  man  from  some  allied  animal,  is  the 
fact  that  so  early  as  in  post-glacial  times  all  trace 


114     THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

of  man  ends,  and  no  trace  of  any  previously  exist- 
ing creature  from  which  even  extremists  would 
derive  him  is  found.  But  the  absohite  duration 
of  the  human  species  does  not  affect  the  argument. 
If  man  has  existed  only  six  or  seven  thousand 
years,  still  at  the  beginning  of  his  existence  —  so 
far  as  we  have  found  his  remains  —  he  was  as  dis- 
tinct from  lower  animals  as  he  is  now,  and  shows 
no  signs  of  gradation  into  other  forms.  If  he  has 
really  endured  since  the  great  glacial  period,  and 
is  to  be  regarded  as  a  species  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand years'  continuance,  and  we  relegate  the  Engis 
skull  to  that  date,  still  the  fact  is  the  same,  and 
is,  if  possible,  less  favorable  to  derivation.  In 
such  case  Ave  ought  to  find  the  Enijis  skull  decid- 
edly  nearing  in  type  our  brute  ancestor,  which  it 
decidedly  does  not.  If  100,000  years  ago  the  in- 
dividual of  the  human  species  was  nothing  less 
than  a  man,  we  may  thoroughly  believe  that  in 
his  earth-history  he  was  never  less  than  a  man, — 
man  as  we  now  see  him. 


ORIGIN'  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPECIES.  115 


CHAPTER  XII. 

UNITY    OF    OEIGIN    OF   THE    HUIVIAN    SPECIES. 

The  old  din  about  the  unity  of  species  of  the 
human  races  has  passed  away  :  this  is  now  con- 
ceded. But  some  are  still  inclined  to  deny  the 
origin  of  mankind  from  one  pair,  —  deny  the  unity 
of  origin  of  the  species.  Says  Haeckel  ("History 
of  Creation,"  304),  "This  supposition  (unity  of 
origin),  which  our  modern  Indo-Germanic  culture 
has  taken  from  the  Semitic  myth  of  the  Mosaic 
history  of  creation,  is  by  no  means  tenable." 

Other  scientists  claim  that  all  human  races 
have  risen  from  a  single  pair.  Says  Quatrefages 
("Species,"  84),  "What  science  may  affirm  is 
that //om  all  appearances  each  species  has  had,  as 
point  of  departure,  a  single  primitive  pair  "  ;  and 
he**says  further,  "  No  facts  have  as  3'et  been  dis- 
covered which  authorize  us  to  place  the  cradle  of 


116     THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

the  human  race  elsewhere  than  in  Asia."  So 
Prof.  Winchell  ("  Pre-Adamites,"  409)  maintains 
that  all  races  of  men  are  derived  from  "  a  single 
original  centre  of  humanity." 

The  universality  of  the  tradition  of  the  flood 
indicates  a  common  origin  of  all  races  of  men 
from  the  flood-saved  family  of  Noah.  The  tradi- 
tion is  found  among  the  Hindoos,  Chaldeans, 
Egyptians,  Chinese,  Persians,  Greeks,  Americans. 
The  American  Arctic  Crees  had  a  tradition  of  a 
universal  deluge,  from  which  one  family  alone 
escaped,  with  all  kinds  of  beasts  and  birds,  on  a 
huije  raft.  The  Mexican  Noah  was  named  Cox- 
cox.  He  and  his  wife  were  all  that  escaped  of 
the  human  race.  He  sent  forth,  as  the  wa'ers 
assuaged,  several  birds;  only  one,  the  hunnning- 
bird,  returned,  holding  in  its  beak  a  branch  cov- 
ered with  leaves.  One  of  the  traditions  of  the 
Mexicans  deduced  their  descent  and  that  of  the 
tribes  from  seven  persons,  who,  after  the  deluge, 
came  forth  from  as  many  caves.  The  Persians 
had  a  similar  version  of  the  story  The  uni- 
versality of  this  tradition,  and  its  similarity  in 
particulars     among    the     peoples     of    mankind, 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  HUM  AX  SPECIES.  \\1 

strongly  point  to  a  unity  of  origin  of  all  these 
peoples. 

And  it  is  a  canon  in  science  that  causes  are 
not  to  be  multiplied  unnecessarily.  Science 
to-day  declares  that  one  pair  is  sufficient  cause  to 
produce  all  human  races ;  then  why  unphilosoph- 
icall}^  multiply  centres  ? 

Comparative  philology  strongly  sustains  the 
hypo  hesis  of  the  unity  of  origin  of  all  human 
races.  It  is  now  a  theorem  in  comparative 
philology  that  the  more  critically  languiges  are 
investigated  in  their  roots,  vocabularies,  and 
grammatical  forms,  the  more  do  apparently  iso- 
lated lanmiaofes  become  referable  to  a  common 
stem, — the  more  do  all  the  languages  of  man- 
kind point  back  to  a  unity  of  origin. 

Dr.  Latham  claims  that  "  the  laws  of  lanoruaofe 
are  the  laws  of  growth  and  development.  It 
seems  that  a  period  wherein  no  inflections  are 
evolved  precedes  the  period  of  inflections." 

Philologists  incline  to  the  opinion  that  mono- 
syllabic ideographic  Chinese  is  of  all  existing 
languages  nearest  the  primitive  type  of  human 
speech,  and  that  from  some  form  similar  to  mon- 


118      THE  SCIENCE    OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

osyllabic  Chinese,  by  a  natural  growth,  all  other 
languages  are  derived.  Philologists  divide  the 
lano^uao^es  of  mankind,  accordino:  to  their  de- 
velopment  in  inflections,  etc.,  into  three  great 
classes;  viz.,  Turanian,  Semitic,  Aryan  or  Indo- 
European. 

The  Turanian  area,  commencing  in  the  north- 
east of  Europe,  embraces  Lapland  and  Finland, 
reaches  across  the  North  of  Russia,  takes  the 
Ural  Mountains  and  the  Caspian  Sea  for  its  west- 
ern limit ;  for  its  southern  limit,  the  mountain 
range  eastward  from  the  Caspian  to  Hindoo 
Koosh,  thence  along  the  Himalayas  down  to  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal ;  from  these 
limits  it  includes  all  Northern  Asia,  monosyllabic 
China  and  Thibet  excepted.  This  class,  in  sim- 
plicity of  structure  and  in  want  of  real  inflections, 
approaches  in  some  degree  the  monosyllabic 
idioms. 

The  Semitic  area  embraces  Syria,  Mesopota- 
mia, part  of  Babylonia,  the  Arabian  peninsula, 
ancient  Egypt.  The  African  Semitic  Gal  la 
tongue,  south  of  the  equator,  dovetails  into  the 
Kaffir  dialects,  which  are  again  affined  to  the 
southwestern  lansruao^es  of  Africa. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPECIES.  119 

The  Indo-European  area  includes  nearly  all 
Europe,  and  a  portion  of  Southwestern  Asia. 
Modern  philology  points  to  ancient  Asiatic  Bactria 
as  the  old  seat  of  the  common  mother-lano-uao-e 
of  this  Indo-European  class,  of  many  sisters. 
Philology  thus  places  the  fountain-head  of  these 
many  linguistic  streams  in  the  same  region  as 
the  Bible  does  the  Babel  of  the  dispersion. 

The  Oceanican  and  American  lanmiaofes  are 
affined  to  the  Turanian  class  ;  Turanian  aofoflutina- 
tion  marks  the  American. 

The  Chinese  and  Thibetan  are,  through  the 
monosyllabic  Tai  of  the  Turanian,  and  the  non- 
monosyllabic  Bhotiya  of  the  same  class,  affined  to 
the  Turanian. 

These  three  great  classes  of  human  languages 
and  their  affined  tongues  cover  nearly  the  entire 
earth. 

If  there  can  be  shown  to  have  been  a  primi- 
tive connection  between  these  three  all-embracing 
classes  of  human  speech,  this  would  indicate  a 
probability  of  a  primitive  connection,  —  one  com- 
mon origin  of  all  the  peoples  whose  speech  those 
languages  are,—  viz  ,  all  mankind.     And  just  this 


120    THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

primitive  connection  philology  now  claims  to  be 
able  to  show. 

For  instance,  Lepsius,  Delitzsch,  and  Max  Mul- 
ler  claim  a  common  element  in  Sanskrit  (of  the 
Aryan  class)  and  Semitic.  Says  Mliller,  "  There 
is  even  now  sufficient  evidence  with  regard  to  a 
radical  community  between  Aryan  and  Semitic 
dialects,  to  enable  us  to  say  that  their  common 
origin  is  not  only  possible,  but  as  far  as  linguistic 
evidence  goes,  probable." 

Again,  in  the  least  developed  form  of  Semitism, 
Khamitism  (the  idiom  of  the  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions, and  of  ancient  Egypt),  we  find  Aryan  affini- 
ties, also  Turanian,  and  the  form  of  monosyllabic 
Chinese ;  and  in  the  least  developed  form  of  the 
Aryan  class,  Celtic,  we  find  affinities  with  the 
Semitic  and  Turanian  classes.  This  running  into 
each  other  of  the  most  ancient  and  least  devel- 
oped forms  of  the  three  great  branches  of  human 
speech,  and  their  nearing  (as  in  Khamitism) 
undeveloped  monosyllabic  Chinese,  is  just  whtit 
we  might  have  expected  to  find  had  all  liirin;iii 
language  sprung  from  some  common  source,  and 
had  each  great  emigration  carried  away  with  it 


0  RIG  I  A'  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPECIES.  121 

its  heirloom  of  speech  from  the  one  homestead, 
developing  its  primitive  material  according  to  its 
own  idiosyncrasy  and  needs. 

Says  Klaproth,  "The  universal  affinity  of  lan- 
guage is  placed  in  so  strong  a  light,  that  it  must 
be  considered  by  all  as  completely  demon- 
strated." Says  Herder  (a  rejecter  of  the  divine 
origin  of  the  Mosaic  record),  "  The  human  race, 
and  lano-uao^e  therewith,  go  back  to  one  common 
stock,  to  a  first  man,  and  not  to  several  dis- 
persed in  several  parts  of  the  world."  Says 
Schlegel,  "Although  many  are  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  their  languages  are  evidently  nearer  or 
more  distant  varieties  of  a  single  mother  tongue, 
spoken  by  one  family  of  people  ;  which  proves  that 
in  the  distant  and  indeterminate  antiquity,  emigra- 
tion took  place  over  wide  tracts  of  country,  from 
a  common  original  abode.  This  is  no  hypothesis, 
but  a  fact  clearly  made  out." 

Says  Max  Miiller,  "  And  now,  as  we  gaze  from 
our  British  shores  over  that  vast  ocean  of  human 
speech,  with  its  waves  rolling  on  from  continent 
to  continent,  rising  under  the  fresh  breezes  of  the 
morning  of  history,  if  we  hearken  to  the  strange 


122     THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND  GENESIS. 

sounds  rushing  past  our  ears  in  unbroken  strains, 
it  seems  no  longer  a  wild  tumult,  an  dirjoid^or 
yt'laa^a,  but  we  feel  as  if  placed  within  some 
ancient  cathedral,  listening  to  a  chorus  of  innu- 
merable voices;  and  the  more  intensely  we  lis- 
ten, the  more  all  discords  melt  away  into  higher 
harmonies,  till  at  last  we  hear  but  one  majestic 
trichord,  or  a  mighty  unison  as  at  the  end  of  a 
sacred  symphony.  Such  visions  will  sometimes 
float  through  the  study  of  the  grammarian,  and  in 
the  midst  of  toilsome  researches  his  heart  will 
suddenly  beat,  as  he  feels  the  conviction  growing 
upon  him  that  men  are  brethren  in  the  simplest 
sense  of  the  word, — the  children  of  the  same 
father,  —  whatever  their  country,  their  color,  their 
language,  or  their  faith." 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF  FHE  EARTH.  123 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

FINAL    DESTINY    OF    THE    EARTH. 

(rt.)  The  idea  of  cycles  has  been  a  favorite 
among  men  when  conceiving  of  the  history  of  our 
globe.  This  was  the  Hindoo  idea  ;  this  also  gleams 
through  Egyptian  and  Greek  transmigration. 
Says  science,  "  Our  globe  was  once  a  burning 
lava  ball."  Says  the  Bible,  "  Our  globe  is  a 
circle-walker,  —  is  moving  round  the  circle  to  the 
point  and  condition  from  which  it  set  out,  a 
burning  lava  ball ;  the  elements  of  the  earth  shall 
melt;  the  ascending  smoke,  vapors,  gases,  shall 
hide  the  heavens,  cause  them  to  disappear  as  a 
scroll  rolled  up."  Such  is  Biblical  prophecy  :  Avhat 
says  science  of  its  probability  or  possibility? 

Science  says,  "  No  atom  of  matter  is  anni- 
hilated." Our  globe,  then,  and  its  surrounding- 
atmosphere  contain  precisely  the  same   elements 


124    'J'fil'-    SC/E/VCE    OF  THE  DAY  AND    CEASES  IS. 

as  when  the  earth  was  a  lava  ball ;  it  only  needs 
these  elements  to  come  into  their  old  relations 
that  all  be  a  lava  ball  again.  And  it  may  be  that 
all  the  elements  of  nature  in  the  midst  of  which 
we  live  are  in  one  grand  march,  fixedly  moving 
around  the  circle  to  this  very  point,  and  "  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,"  all  to  be 
a  fiery  furnace  airain. 

Science  knows  full  well  the  inflammable  nature 
of  the  elements  constituting  the  earth  and  its 
atmosphere.  Sir  Charles  Lyell  quotes  approv- 
ingly the  thought  of  Pliny,  "  It  is  an  amazement 
that  our  world,  so  full  of  combustible  elements, 
stands  a  moment  unexploded." 

What  is  that  which  sustains  the  flame  of  the 
candle,  the  rolling  fire-waves  of  the  burning  build- 
ing, the  intense  heat  of  the  smelting  furnace  trans- 
muting iron  into  a  red,  glowing  li<|uid  stream? 
A  gas  called  oxygen,  the  base  of  all  combus- 
tion ;  combustion  is  the  product  of  oxygen  in 
combination  with  any  other  substance.  ^^'llen 
the  process  of  combustion  is  conducted  in  pure 
oxygen,  even  some  of  the  metal -i  conunonly 
regarded  as  incombustible  may  be  made  to  burn 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF   THE  EARTH.  125 

with   woncierful    brilliancy.     A   steel   wire,     for 
instance,  o-ives  out  a  bri«:ht  flame. 

How  awfully  intense  must  be  the  heat  of  a  fur- 
nace whose  fuel  is  pure  oxygen  !  Just  such  a 
possible  furnace  is  our  world,  over  which  is  writ- 
ten, "Reserved  for  fire." 

Our  atmosphere  is  about  forty-five  miles  high, 
composed  essentially  of  two  gases,  nitrogen  and 
oxygen.  Oxygen  in  volume  is  one  fifth  of  this 
forty-five  miles  wrappage.  Let  the  atmosphere 
by  some  shock  be  suddenly  decomposed,  and 
oxygen,  the  heavier  gas,  fall  to  the  earth ;  a 
wrappage  nine  miles  in  thickness  of  this  fearful 
furnace  gas  would  encircle  this  globe.  "Who  can 
set  limits  to  the  melting  powers  of  such  a  mass  of 
this  furnace  fuel  ? 

Again,  water  is  constituted  of  oxygen  and 
hydrogen  ;  by  weight,  oxygen  8  parts,  h^^drogen 
1.  The  atmosphere  is  impregnated  with  aqueous 
vapor  to  the  height  of  five  or  eight  miles.  There 
is  water  enough  in  the  oceans,  lakes,  rivers,  to 
cover  the  entire  globe  two  miles  ("Challenger") 
in  depth.  Immense  quantities  of  water  are  within 
the  earth  :  subterranean  rivers  and  lakes,  and  that 


12(5     THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

mass  in  statioiitiry  collections  in  gravelly  and  other 
loose  strata,  from  any  of  which,  on  perforation, 
come  the  ordinary  or  artesian  wells.  Even  the 
rocks  and  soils  are  permeated  with  water,  while 
plants  and  animals  are  largely  constituted  of  it ; 
five  sixths  of  a  living  human  body  is  s^imply  water. 
How  like  a  world  prepared  for  a  great  conflagra- 
tion our  earth  is,  when  we  remember  that  eight 
ninths  of  all  this  water,  massed  on  its  surface, 
running  as  rivers  or  accumulated  as  lakes  within 
its  crust,  permeating  its  soils  and  rocks,  consti- 
tuting largely  its  vegetation  and  animals,  is  the 
fearful  furnace,  oxygen  gas!  And  yet  further, 
hydrogen,  constituting  the  other  ninth  part  of 
water,  is  itself  also  combustible,  joroducing  an 
intense  heat,  and  when  united  with  a  proper  pro- 
portion of  air  or  oxygen,  its  combustion  is  in- 
stantaneous and  explosive.  The  Bible  speaks  of  a 
"  loud  noise  "  at  the  final  conflagration.  Another 
striking  fact  is  to  be  noted  :  the  intenscst  heat  by 
far  yet  evolved  by  the  blowpipe  is  by  the  com- 
bustion of  those  two  gases,  oxygen  and  hydrogen, 
constituting  water,  so  everywhere  pervasive  in  the 
earth. 


FINAL   DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  127 

And  Avhat  may  well  astonish  us,  Dr.  Robert 
Hare,  of  Philadelphia,  the  inventor  of  the  oxy- 
hydrogen  blowpipe,  observed  that  "  the  most 
intense  heat  attainable  was  generated  when  the 
proportions  of  the  gases  Avere  the  same  as  in 
water." 

Yet  further,  the  solid  crust  of  our  globe  —  the 
earths  and  rocks  themselves  —  holds  in  combina- 
tion vast  masses  of  this  oxygen  fuel.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  nearly  one  half  of  our  globe  is  oxygen. 
For  example,  a  single  ounce  of  the  peroxide  of 
manganese  contains  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
cubic  inches  of  oxygen  gas  ;  every  half-ounce  of 
chlorate  of  potash  affords  two  hundred  and  seventy 
cubic  inches  of  pure  gas.  What  an  immense 
volume  of  this  furnace  gas,  from  even  the  earths 
and  the  rocks  beneath  us,  is  ready  to  burst  forth 
at  the  touch  of  the  competent  finger ! 

Again,  it  is  estimated  that,  descending  from  the 
surface  of  the  earth  towards  the  centre,  a  rise  of 
1°  Fahrenheit  occurs  for  every  fifty-eight  feet. 
"  If,  then,"  says  Dr.  Draper,  '*  the  increase  of 
heat  is  only  100"  per  mile,  at  a  depth  of  ten 
miles  everything  must  be  red-hot,  and  at  thirty 


128    THE  SCIENCE  OF  THE  DAY  AND  GENESIS. 

or  forty  miles  below  the  surfiice  in  a  melted 
state."  This  may  startle  us  :  our  globe  to-day  a 
lava  ball  8,000  miles  in  diameter,  except  a  little 
outside  fringe,  greatly  thinner  in  proportion  to 
the  inner  bulk  than  shell  of  ^^g  to  inner  bulk  ! 
The  smoke  and  cinders  and  steam  and  sflowinsr 
lava  thrust  out  from  an  ^Etna,  a  Vesuvius,  a 
Mauna  Loa,  are  but  little  warning  whispers  to 
the  dweller  on  the  earth  —  the  insect,  man  — 
of  the  wild,  heaving  fire-ocean  beneath  his  feet ; 
while  the  continuous  earthquakes  and  the  rend- 
ing of  the  earth  in  fissures,  preceding  the  vol- 
canic outflow,  declare  to  man  the  frailty  of  the 
bridge  which  tremulously  sustains  him  over  the 
abyss  of  fire.  Or  regard,  as  some,  the  earth's 
crust  2,500  miles  in  thickness ;  in  the  centre  a 
solid  nucleus ;  between  crust  and  nucleus,  fire 
oceans,  —  even  then  our  standing  place,  in  its 
shaking,  swaying,  fracturing,  seems  frail. 

When  we  thus  in  the  light  of  science  look  in 
upon  the  fire-ocean  beating  wildly  beneath  our 
feet,  when  we  consider  the  frailty  of  the  bridge 
on  which  we  stand,  when  we  call  to  mind  the 
combustible   and   explosive  elements  with  which 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  129 

we  are  encompassed  and  with  which  our  frail 
bridge  is  honeycombed,  —  rather  than  be  aston- 
ished that  the  Bible  says  the  world  is  "  reserved 
for  fire,"  we  may,  with  the  ancient  naturalist 
Pliny,  and  the  modern  scientist  Lyell,  wonder 
that  a  frame  of  things  so  like  a  powder  magazine 
stands  for  a  moment  unexploded. 

Mr.  R.  A.  Proctor,  in  his  latest  volume,  "The 
Flowers  of  the  Sky,"  speaks  of  another  source 
whence  may  come  by  fire,  destruction  to  all  ter- 
restrial life.  Each  star  is  a  sun,  in  general 
respects  similar  to  ours,  each  glowing  with  intense 
heat.  Mr.  Proctor  notes  that  in  1866,  a  star  in 
the  constellation  Northern  Cross,  suddenly  shone 
with  eight  hundred  times  its  former  lustre,  after- 
ward rapidly  diminishing  in  lustre  :  and  that  in 
1876  a  new  star  in  the  constellation  Cygnus 
became  visible,  subsequently  fiiding  again  so  as 
to  be  only  perceptible  by  means  of  a  telescope  ; 
the  lustre  of  this  star  increased  five  hundred  to 
many  thousand  times  (according  to  data  as- 
sumed). Proctor  claims  that  should  our  star, 
the  sun,  similarly  increase  in  lustre  only  one  hun- 
dred times,   the  glowing  heat  would  destroy  all 


130    THE  SCIEIVCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GEiYESIS. 

vegetable  and  animal  life  on  our  earth,  even  "  the 
stubborn  animalcules  and  the  lowest  forms  of 
vesfetation."  But  what  a  fearful  furnace  would 
our  globe  be  in,  if  the  sun's  lustre  increased 
"  many  thousand  times,"  as  possibly  did  that  of 
the  star  in  Cygnus  ! 

As  these  star  worlds  of  the  Northern  Cross  and 
Cygnus  suddenly  shone  out  Avith  unwonted  lustre 
to  the  observer  on  the  far-distant  earth,  so  there 
approaches  a  day,  a  day  which  shall  come  all 
suddenly,  a  day  perhaps  near,  Avhen  our  globe  to 
the  distant  observers  on  other  spheres  shall  all 
suddenly  shine  forth  with  unwonted  lustre  ;  the 
moment  then  come  when  "  the  elements  shall 
melt  with  fervent  heat,  the  earth  and  the  works 
that  are  therein  be  burnt  up,  and  the  heavens 
pass  away  Avith  a  great  noise." 

Says  Principal  Dawson  ("Princeton  Review," 
November,  1879),  "It  is  a  question  raised  by  cer- 
tain expressions  of  Scripture,  whether  the  AA^orld 
(morally)  AA'ill  again  fall  into  the  condition  in 
which  it  was  before  the  Flood.  'As  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Noah,'  we  are  told,  '  so  shall  it  be  Avhen 
the  Son  of  Man  comes  to  judgment.'     To   bring 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  131 

the  world  into  such  a  state,  it  would  require  that 
it  should  shake  off  the  superstitions,  fears,  and 
religious  hopes  which  now  affect  it ;  that  it  should 
practically  cast  aside  all  belief  in  God,  in  moral- 
ity, and  in  the  spiritual  nature  and  higher  des- 
tiny of  man  ;  that  it  should  devote  itself  entirely 
to  the  things  that  belong  to  the  present  life,  and 
the  pursuit  of  those  should  l)e  influenced  by  noth- 
ing higher  than  a  selfish  expediency.  Then 
would  the  earth  again  l)e  filled  with  violence,  and 
again  would  it  cry  unto  God  for  punishment,  and 
again  would  he  say  that  his  'spirit  should  no 
longer  strive  with  man,'  and  that  '  it  repented  him 
that  he  had  made  man  upon  the  earth.'  Who 
shall  say  that  this  is  impossible?  On  the  con- 
trary, do  we  not  see  in  the  materialistic  philos- 
ophy, in  the  cold,  calculating  policy,  the  profound 
selfishness,  and  the  proud  self-confidence  of  the 
more  civilized  races  in  our  times,  [in  widespread 
nihilism,  which  shouts  'Down  with  all  srovern- 
ment,  down  with  the  family,  down  with  all 
morality,  down  with  God  ! ']  indications  of  the 
same  spirit  which  was  in  the  antediluvians? 
Should  it  come   to    pass  that  this    spirit   should 


132    THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND    GENESIS. 

again  prevail,  it  might  happen  that  God,  who  has 
so  much  patience  with  the  follies,  the  supersti- 
tions, and  the  baser  appetites  of  humanity,  might 
again  direct  his  judgments  against  this  higher  and 
more  stupendous  form  of  iniquity;  and  as  the 
earth  that  then  was  perished  by  water,  so  that 
which  is  now  might,  in  consideration  of  the 
clearer  light  it  has  abused  and  the  greater  privi- 
leges it  has  despised,  be  visited  with  fire, 
reserved  against  '  the  day  of  judgment  and  per- 
dition of  ungodly  men,'  and  vjJiich  nature  can  in 
main/  ways  2)rovide.''^ 

(b.)  Let  it  be  that  the  earth  is  melted  by  fire, 
and  all  things  therein  burnt  up  :  what  becomes  of 
the  burnt  material,  since  no  atom  of  matter  is 
annihilated? 

To-day  this  globe  wheels  through  space  wrapped 
in  sin  as  in  a  garment ;  the  vile  poison  of  its  iilthy 
moral  envelope  permeates  in  God's  eye  the  material 
earth  itself;  all  has  become  defiled.  This  is  the 
devil's  work,  through  his  seduction  to  sin  of  our 
first  parents.  But  "  the  Son  of  God  was  mani- 
fested that  he  might  destroy  the  works  of  the 
devil."     Christ's  work    in    this  world   is   for  the 


FINAL   DESTINY  OF  THE   EARTH.  133 

devil's  work  an  antidote,  will  be  a  perfect  antidote 
except  where  resisted  by  the  will  of  the  moral 
creature.  Christ's  work,  then,  must  include  the 
purification  and  restitution  of  the  material  earth. 
Christ's  purification  of  the  earth  by  fire,  and  his 
restitution  of  it,  does  not  mean  simply  his  putting 
of  it  into  a  seven  times  heated  furnace  for  a  little 
time,  and  then  leaving  it  forever  a  blackened 
desolation  in  God's  universe.  Restitution  of  the 
earth  by  Christ  means  something  infinitely  better 
than  this  ;  means  the  bringing  of  it  out  from  under 
curse  a  pure  thing,  reconstructing  it  into  a  new 
Eden,  making  it  once  again  the  happy  home  of 
holy  beings.  Says  Isaiah,  "  Behold,  I  create  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth."  Peter  tells  us  this 
promise  in  his  time  was  yet  imfulfilled,  and  says 
expectantly,  "  We,  according  to  his  promise,  look 
for  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness "  (dwell  the  righteous).  So,  later, 
the  Revelator,  still  looking  forward,  says,  "I  saw 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  for  the  first  heaven 
and  the  first  earth  were  passed  away,  and  I,  John, 
saw  the  holy  city,  New  Jerusalem,  coining  down 
from    God   out  of  heaven,  prepared  as   a   bride 


134    THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND  GENESIS. 

adorned  for  her  husband"  ;  and  he  tells  us  this 
New  Jerusalem,  coming  down  out  of  heaven  to  the 
new  earth,  is  the  "bride,  the  Lamb's  wife,"  i.  e., 
entire  redeemed  Israel.  The  restored  new  earth 
is  here  declared  to  be  the  future  home  of  the 
redeemed  ;  part  of  their  glad,  prophetic  song  to- 
day in  heaven  is  (Rev.  v.  10),  "We  shall  reign 
on  the  eariJi.'' 

To  this  consummation  the  promise  of  God  to 
the  Jews  of  the  inheritance  of  Canaan  points,  as 
also  analogically  does  the  past  history  of  the 
earth. 

When  we  keep  in  mind  that  the  Israelites  were 
a  typical  people,  this  renders  their  history  in- 
tensely significant,  interesting.  Promises  made 
and  fulfilled  to  them  were  not  in  that  first  fulfil- 
ment exhausted  of  all  they  contained ;  this  first 
fulfilment  was  simply  typical ;  a  mere  shadow  of 
the  substance  in  the  promise ;  a  narrow,  small, 
meagre  thing,  compared  with  the  true,  full,  large 
God-thought  in  its  ultimate  treasure,  in  its  ful- 
filment to  antitypical  Israel.  All  this  holds  true 
of  the  promise  made  to  Abraham  and  his  seed  of 
possession  of  Canaan.     That  promise  to  typical 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  135 

Israel  of  a  little  bit  of  land,  rich  in  the  finest  of 
the  wheat,  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  speaks 
to  the  antitypical  Israel  of  an  inheritance  wider 
than  ancient  Canaan's  narrow  limits,  of  a  land 
i-icher  and  of  better  fruits  ;  is  promise  of  God  to 
his  children  universal,  that  one  day  they  shall 
possess  the  earth  in  its  entire  compass,  in  all  its 
riches,  and  in  its  every  fountain  of  pleasure. 

The  Bible  clearly  sustains  this  enlarged  view  of 
the  old  promise  of  Canaan  to  Abraham  and  his 
seed.  The  Bible  declares  that  the  promise  was 
never  fulfilled  in  all  its  significance  to  them.  Saj's 
Stephen,  God  gave  Abraham  "  none  inheritance  in 
it,  no  not  so  much  as  to  set  his  foot  on  ;  yet  he 
promised  that  he  would  give  it  to  him  for  a  pos- 
session." Says  HebreAvs,  "  By  faith  Al)raliam 
sojourned  in  the  land  of  promise,  as  in  a  strange 
country,  dwelling  in  tabernacles  with  Isaac  and  Ja- 
cob, the  heirs  with  him  of  the  same  promise.  These 
all  died  in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises 
but  having  seen  them  afiir  off",  and  confessed  that 
they  were  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth." 
And  after  naming  a  host  of  other  worthies,  the 
chapter  thus  ends:  "These  all,  having  obtained  a 


13f)    THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

good  report  through  faith,  received  not  the  prom- 
ise :  God  having  provided  some  better  thing  for  us, 
that  they  without  us  should  not  be  made  perfect "  ; 
/.  e.,  these  worthies  never  entered  into  possession 
of  the  promise  of  Canaan  in  its  deepest  signifi- 
cance, never  will  until  the  entire  company  of 
God's  redeemed,  antitypical  Israel  shall  enter 
upon  the  possession  of  the  new  earth,  antitypical 
Canaan,  —  led  into  it  under  Jesus,  the  antitypical 
Joshua,  —  reigned  over  by  God's  anointed,  Christ, 
the  antitypical  David.  Then  is  the  time  when  the 
"stone  "  which  Daniel  saw  "cut  out  of  the  moun- 
tain without  hands,"  having  dashed  in  pieces  every 
opposing  kingdom,  shall  "  fill  the  whole  earth"; 
then  is  the  time,  and  not  till  then,  when  "  the  earth 
shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the 
waters  cover  the  sea  "  ;  then  is  the  time  when  Jesus 
to  his  people  shall  fulfil  his  own  words,  "  The 
meek  shall  inherit  the  earth." 

This  idea  of  the  earth's  purification  in  the  future 
—  renewal,  being  lifted  into  a  higher  condition, 
condition  fitter!  for  a  higher  order  of  beings,  peo- 
pled with  beings  of  a  higher  order  —  is  sustained 
analogically  by  the  past  physical  history  of  the 
earth. 


FIAAL   DESTIh'Y  OF  HIE   EARTH.  137 

In  the  past  we  see  the  earth  in  a  state  of  fusion, 
azoic.  Then  the  chaotic  water  waste,  azoic ; 
'Might,"  not  "lights"  yet.  "This  air  which  we 
])reathe  so  freely  was  in  the  beginning  so  loaded 
with  poisonous  carbonic  acid  as  to  be  unfit  for  the 
sustenance  of  organisms.  At  that  time,  therefore, 
the  earth  was  uninhabited.  Gradually,  by  a  sul)- 
tile  chemical  process,  immense  quantities  of  the 
carbonic  acid  was  withdrawn  and  united  with  lime 
to  form  immense  beds  of  limestone,  Avhich  still 
form  much  of  the  strata  of  the  earth.  The  atmos- 
phere was  now  suitable  for  the  growth  of  vegeta- 
tion and  the  life  of  lower  water-breathing  animals, 
l)ut  not  for  the  higher  air-breathing  animals. 
Therefore,  when  all  the  other  preparatory  ar- 
rangements were  made  for  the  introduction  of 
these  higher  anima's,  immense  quantities  of  car- 
bonic acid  were  again  silently  withdrawn  from  the 
air  by  the  hixuriant  vegetation  of  the  coal  period, 
—  the  carbon  forming  coal,  the  oxygen  returning 
to  the  air.  Again  during  the  Secondary  period, 
and  again  during  the  Tertiary  period,  the  same 
})rocess  was  repeated ;  carlK)nic  acid  withdrawn 
from  the  air,  the  carbon  laid  up  as  coal,  and  the 


138    THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

oxvircn  returned  to  the  air."  This  ch:in2:e  and  rise 
of  character  in  the  atmosphere,  progressing  through 
untold  centuries  till  the  appearance  of  man,  is  type 
of  changes  to  higher  forms  which  have  taken  place 
in  other  physical  conditions  of  the  earth.  And 
these  upward  changes  in  the  ph^^sical  conditions  of 
the  earth  were  ever  followed  by  the  appearance  of 
new  and  higher  grades  of  creatures  upon  the 
earth  ;  the  climax  of  physical  conditions  reached, 
the  climax  of  the  creature  world  appeared,  — 
man. 

At  this  point  the  earth  was  given  into  the  hand 
of  man  "to  dress  and  keep,"  and  develop  quietly 
into  God's  ideal.  But  man  rebelled  aijainst  the 
divine  plan,  refused  "to  dress  and  keep  it,"  — 
sinned.  Said  God,  "  Cursed  is  the  ground  for 
thy  sake."  This  curse  must  in  some  way  have 
affected  the  earth  for  evil,  thrust  it  backward 
from  its  possible  development  under  man's 
"dressing  and  keeping,"  —  perhaps  jiaralyzed  in  it 
that  progressively  developing  force  which,  acted 
on  by  man  in  obedient  co-o[)eration  with  God, 
would  have  caused  it  to  pass  on  (juietly  into  a 
very  much  higher  condition  than  its  present,  fitted 


FINAL   DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  139 

it  for  the  joyous  habitation  of  man  in  the  high 
condition  of  a  nature  and  a  holiness  developed 
uninterruptedly  from  the  germ  of  his  primal  in- 
nocence and  God-image.  Adam  utterly  failed  to 
accomplish  this  God-intrusted  work,  —  "he  fell, 
and  dragged  the  earth  down  with  him  into  devas- 
tating ruin.  He  thus  became  absolutely  incapable 
of  fulfilling  his  mission.  Hence  Christ,  the  sec- 
ond Adam,  came  in  the  stead  of  man,  to  renew 
and  complete  what  man  had  destroyed  and  failed 
of  accomplishing;  to  lead  the  world  on  to  its 
God-ideal  development  and  intended  place  in  the 
universe.  But  this  can  now  no  longer  be  done  in 
the  method  originally  intended,  by  quiet,  gradual 
organic  development ;  this  method  has  been  dis- 
turbed and  forever  rendered  impossible  by  the 
man  wrapping  himself  and  the  earth  in  the  gar- 
ment of  sin,  and  drawing  in  upon  the  "ground" 
God's  paralyzing  curse.  A  new  method  of  devel- 
opment and  perfecting  of  the  material  earth  and 
its  creatures  must  now  be  adopted  by  the  new 
Adam,  delegated  of  God  with  ample  poAvers  ibr 
his  work.  This  noAv  can  only  be  accomplished 
by  the  breaking  out,  in  the  appalling  catastrophe 


140    THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AXD    GENESIS. 

of  a  burning,  melting,  furnace  world,  of  the  con- 
suming and  purifying  tires  of  the  last  day ;  and 
from  out  those  flaming  elements,  purified  from  all 
dross  and  defilement,  shall  issue  a  new  earth,  in 
the  perfection  of  God's  ideal, — a  perfect  earth, 
fitting  abode  for  man  perfect  in  Christ,  —  God's 
ideal  in  the  material  earth  and  God's  ideal  in  its 
creature  inhabitant  at  last  reached."  Reached, 
but  reached  after,  oh,  how  long  a  time  since  the 
first  atom  of  the  primitive  nebula,  whence  came 
our  solar  system,  was  laid !  A  little  gleam  of 
lii?ht  is  o-iven  here  on  the  siofniticance  of  that 
word  of  Peter,  "  A  thousand  years  is  with  the 
Lord  as  one  day,"  and  on  the  significance  of  that 
other  word,  "  Eternity '' ! 

"In  the  history  of  the  earth  which  we  inhabit, 
mollusks,  fishes,  reptiles,  mammals,  had  each  in 
succession  their  periods  of  vast  duration  ;  and  then 
the  human  period  began,  —  the  period  of  a  fellow- 
worker  with  God,  created  in  God's  own  image. 
What  is  to  be  the  next  advance?  Is  there  to  be 
merely  a  repetition  of  the  past,  an  introduction 
a  second  time  of  man  made  in  the  image  of  God? 
No.     The  geologist,  in  those  tables  of  stone  which 


FINAL   DEST/.VY  OF   7 HE  EARTH.  141 

form  his  reeords,   finds  no  example  of  dynasties 
once   passed  away,    again   returning.     There  has 
been  no  repetition  of  the  dynasty  of  the  tish,  oi 
the  reptile,  of  the  mammal.     The  dynasty  of  the 
future  is  to  have  glorified  man  for  its  inhabitant ; 
but  it  is  to  be  the  dynasty  of  the  '  Kingdom;  —  not 
of  o-lorified  man  made  in  the   image  of  God,  \m\ 
of    God   himself  in   the   form   of  man.      In  the 
doctrine    of    the   two    conjoined   natures,    human 
and  divine,  and  in  the  further  doctrine  that  the 
terminal  dynasty  is  to  be  peculiarly  the  dynasty 
of  Him  in  whom  the  natures  are  united,  we  have 
that  required  progression  beyond  which  progress 
cannot  go.     We  find  the  point  of  elevation  never 
to   be  exceeded  meetly  coincident  with  the  final 
period  never  to  be  terminated  ;  the  infinite  in  height 
harmoniously  associated  with  the  eternal  in  dura- 
tion.    Creation  and  Creator  meet  at  one  point  and 
in   one    person.     The  long   ascending   line    from 
dead  matter  to  man  has  been   a  progress   God- 
wards  ;  not  an  asymptotical  progress,  but  destined 
from  the  beginning  to  furnish  a  point  of  union  : 
and  occupying  that  point  as  true   God  and  true 
man,  as    Creator  and  created,    we   recognize  the 


142    THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

adorable  Monarch  of  ai!  the  future,  —  the  God- 
man,  the  antitypical  David.  ("  Testimony  of  the 
Rocks,"  178.) 

"  Formerly,  when  Jehovah  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  earth,  the  morning  stars,  beholding  with 
adorinof  wonder,  sansf  too'ether  in  choral  son^s  of 
praise  ;  aucl  as  the  Eternal  Word,  full  of  grace  and 
truth,  left  the  throne  of  glory  to  clothe  himself  in 
flesh  and  blood,  then  swelled  in  higher  and  fuller 
notes  the  chorus  of  the  heavenly  host,  '  Glory  to 
God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good-will 
to  men  ! '  In  the  future,  also,  when  the  son  of 
man  shall  come  again  in  the  clouds,  surrounded 
by  all  the  glory  of  his  eternal  Godhead,  to  reuew 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,  consummate  all  things, 
and  take  possession  of  the  Everlasting  Kingdom, 
then  shall  those  sacred  messengers  of  his  miofht 
and  goodness,  whose  bosoms  are  thrilled  with 
unspeakable  joy  at  every  new  token  of  the  spread 
of  God's  kingdom  upon  the  earth,  behold  with 
adoring  wonder  the  full  development  of  those 
heaven-born  mysteries  they  now  desire  to  look 
into,  and  in  purer  tones  and  loftier  chorus  shall 
they  sing  their  eternal  hallelujahs," —  as  they  see 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF   THE    EARTH.  143 

their  Lord  triumphant  over  all  his  enemies,  tlie 
devil's  work  on  the  earth  destroyed,  the  earth 
restored  to  its  pristine  purity,  beauty,  full  powers, 
the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lami)  come,  and  the 
Bridegroom  and  the  bride  enter  into  possession 
of  the  eternal  inheritance,  —  the  entire  house  of 
Israel  possessing  in  its  fulness  the  promise  of 
Canaan  at  last.  And  this  is  the  only  "  return " 
of  the  Jews ;   this  is  the  restoration  of  Israel. 

This  very  earth  we  now  live  in  is  thus  to  be 
God's  redeemed  people's  eternal  home.  That 
very  world  in  whicli  Christ  Avas  crucified  is  the 
world  in  which  Christ  shall  reign.  That  very 
world  in  which  Clirist's  people  Avere  counted  the 
"ofFscouring  of  all  things,"  scourged,  imprisoned, 
cast  to  wild  beasts,  droAvned,  burned,  beheaded, 
racked  to  death,  is  the  very  world  which  shall 
one  day  be  all  their  own,  and  in  Avhich  they  shall 
live  and  reign  as  priests  and  nobles  and  kings  in 
a  kingdom  eternal.  That  very  Avorld  in  Avhich 
the  Christian  has  been  once  the  slave  of  sin,  has 
struggled  Avith  corruption,  has  endured  the  pains 
of  sickness,  has  Avept  his  tears  beside  tlie  still 
forms  of  his  loved  ones,  has  himself  gone  down 


144    THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE   DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

in  the  conflict  with  the  last  enemy,  is  the  very 
world  on  whose  renewed  and  purified  soil  he  shall 
walk  a  holy  beino;,  pure  and  free  as  an  angel  of 
God.  He  shall  nevermore  say,  "  I  am  sick  !  "  the 
pierced  hand  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  his 
eyes ;  neither  shall  he  die  any  more,  but  trium- 
phantly shall  sing,  "O  death,  where  is  thy 
sting?  O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory?"  Rest, 
sweet  rest,  now,  to  the  child  of  the  Great  King, 
beautiful  robes,  abundance  at  his  Father's  table, 
large  possessions,  a  splendid  mansion,  home  now, 
home  forever  ! 

(c.)  What  kind  of  a  world  shall  the  renewed 
earth  be  ? 

When  God  made  man  and  placed  him  on  this 
earth,  the  man  and  his  dwelhng-place  were 
adapted  to  each  other.  When  man  is  simply 
made  a  perfect  man  in  Christ,  the  (jeneral  cupped 
of  the  earth  need  not  be  greatly  changed.  Had 
primitive  man  olieyed  God's  words,  "  Dress  it,  keep 
it,"  refrained  from  sin,  and  no  curse  come  in  upon 
the  "ground,"  blotting  out  from  it  some  intrinsic 
power  of  goodness,  man  might  perhaps  have  led 
it  on    quietly  to    a   higher   development,  a  com- 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF   THE  EARTH.  145 

plete  transformation,  transfiguration ;  left  now, 
this,  for  the  second  Adam  to  accomplish  in  the 
great  conflagration  and  restoration.  In  the  past, 
our  world  has  ever  been  passing  from  lower  to 
higher  phases  physically,  preparatory  to  its  be- 
coming the  abode  of  ever  more  highly  developed 
inhabitants.  When  it  comes  out  from  its  melting 
in  fire,  in  its  reconstruction  the  earth  may  be,  in 
its  material  adaptations,  furnishing,  scenery,  ele- 
vatec-  in  every  way ;  be  fitted,  as  never  in  all  its 
past  iiistory,  for  the  new  and  higher  life  now  to 
enter  it,  —  man  in  his  spiritual  body,  a  transforma- 
tion and  a  transfiguration  passed  upon  the  earth 
and  all  its  furnishing  in  its  baptism  of  fire  and 
in  its  renewal,  similar  to  that  which  the  matter  of 
the  bodies  of  the  saints  livins^  on  the  earth  at  the 
sounding  of  the  last  trump  shall  undergo  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  the  "  changed  "  earth  and 
furnishing  be  perfectly,  beautifully,  thrillingly 
adapted  to  the  saints  in  their  bodies  "  changed." 

But  while  we  conceive  of  the  future  earth  as 
elevated,  passed  on  to  a  higher  condition,  we  are 
not  to  conceive  of  it  as  divested  of  the  qualities  of 
materialism  j  it  shall  be  still  a  genuine,  solid  earth. 


146    THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND   GENESIS. 

Says  Dr.  Chalmers,  "The  object  of  the  admiuis- 
tration  we  sit  under  is  to  extirpate  sin,  not  to 
sweep  away  materialism.  By  the  convulsions  of 
the  last  day  materialism  may  be  shaken  and  broken 
down  from  its  present  arrangements,  and  thrown 
into  such  fitful  agitations  as  that  the  whole  of  its 
existing  framework  shall  fall  to  pieces,  and  by  a 
heat  so  fervent  as  to  melt  its  most  solid  elements 
may  be  utterly  dissolved ;  and  thus  may  the  earth 
again  become  without  form  and  void,  but  without 
one  particle  of  its  substance  going  into  annihila- 
tion. Out  of  the  ruins  of  this  second  chaos  shall 
another  heaven  and  another  earth  be  made  to 
arise,  and  a  new  materialism,  with  perhaps  other 
aspects  of  magnificence  and  beauty,  emerge  from 
the  wreck  of  this  mighty  transformation  ;  and  the 
world  be  peopled  as  before,  with  the  varieties  of 
material  loveliness,  and  space  be  again  lighted  up 
into  a  firmament  of  material  splendor." 

To  him  who  shall  enter  into  its  possession,  the 
new  earth  in  its  adaptations,  its  furnishing,  its 
beauty,  its  employments,  its  varied,  intense,  ever- 
enlarging  river  of  pleasures,  shall  be  a  gift  worthy 
the  universal   Sovereign     to    his   child   beloved. 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  147 

Says  Saurin,  "Could  I  extract  the  choicest  digni- 
ties and  fortunes,  could  I  inhabit  the  most  tem- 
perate clime  and  the  most  pleasant  country, 
could  I  choose  the  most  benevolent  hearts  and 
the  wisest  minds,  could  I  take  the  most  happy 
temper  and  the  most  sublime  genius,  could  I 
cultivate  the  sciences  and  make  the  fine  arts 
flourish,  could  I  collect  and  unite  all  that  could 
please  the  passions,  and  banish  all  that  could  give 
pain,  —  a  life  formed  on  this  plan,  how  likely  to 
please  us  !  How  is  it  that  God,  who  has  resolved 
to  render  us  one  day  happy,  does  not  allow  us  to 
continue  in  this  world,  and  content  himself  with 
uniting  all  these  happy  circumstances  in  our 
favor?  'It  is  good  to  be  here.'  Oh,  that  he 
would  allow  us  here  to  build  our  tahernades! 
Ah,  a  life  formed  on  this  plan  might  indeed 
answer  the  ideas  of  happiness  which  feeble  and 
finite  geniuses  form,  but  such  a  plan  cannot  even 
approach  the  designs  of  an  infinite  God.  No,  all 
the  charms  of  this  society,  of  this  fortune,  and  of 
this  life ;  no,  all  the  softness  of  these  climates, 
and  of  these  countries ;  no,  all  the  benevolences 
of  these  hearts,  and   all  the  friendship  of  these 


148    THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  DAY  AND  GENESIS. 

minds ;  no,  all  the  happiness  of  this  temper,  and 
all  the  sublimity  of  this  genius ;  no,  all  the  secrets 
of  the  sciences,  and  all  the  discoveries  of  the  fine 
arts,  —  all  the  attractions  of  these  societies  and  all 
the  pleasures  of  the  passions  have  nothing,  I  do 
not  say  which  exhausts  the  love  of  God  and  its 
treasure-thoughts  for  his  child,  I  do  not  say  which 
answers,  I  venture  to  say  which  ajiproacJies  it. 
To  accomplish  this  love,  to  lead  the  redeemed 
into  the  fulness  of  its  treasure-thought,  there 
must  be  another  world ;  there  must  be  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth ;  there  must  be  objects 
far  more  grand." 

"  Where  the  faded  flowers  shall  freshen, 

Freshen  never  more  to  fade ; 
Where  the  shaded  sky  shall  brighten, 

Brighten  never  more  to  shade ; 
Where  the  sun-blaze  never  scorches, 

Where  the  star-beams  cease  to  chill, 
Where  no  tempest  stirs  the  echoes 

Of  the  wood  or  wave  or  hill.  .  .  . 
Where  no  shadow  shall  bewilder ; 

Where  life's  vain  parade  is  o'er ; 
Where  the  sleep  of  sin  is  broken, 

And  the  dreamer  dreams  no  more. 
Where  the  bond  is  never  severed ; 

Partings,  claspings,  sob  and  moan, 
Midnight  working,  twilight  Aveeping, 

Heavy  noontide,  —  all  ax'e  done. 


FINAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  EARTH.  I49 

Where  the  child  has  found  its  mother, 

Where  the  mother  finds  the  child ; 
Where  dear  families  are  gathered, 

That  were  scattered  on  the  wild.  .  .  . 
Where  the  hidden  wound  is  healed ; 

Where  the  blighted  life  reblooms ; 
Where  the  smitten  heart  the  freshness 

Of  its  buoyant  youth  resumes.  .  .  . 
Where  we  find  the  ioy  of  loving 

As  we  never  loved  before. 
Loving  on,  unchilled,  unhidden, 

Loving  once,  forevermore." 


^^,  B.  SMITH   &   GO'S 

Snaj>.     A  Story  of  Border  Life  in  the  Ox-Train  Era.     By  T. 

Buchanan  Price, ^^  ^ 

Circnmsfaufial  Evidence.    A  Novel.     By  Alice  Irving 

Abbott,   ^  ^^ 

French  Exiles  in  Louisiana.    Historical  Novel.    Illus- 
trated.    By  J.  C.  Lindsay |1  ^^ 

Moscobel.     Novel— describing  Life  at  the  Winter  Resorts  of 

Florida,. ^  ^^ 

The  Minister's  Daughter.     Story— the  Heart-history  of 

a  noble  life.     By  Wm.  McMichael, 1  00 

The  Complete  Cooh  Book.    Complete  and  thorough  in 

every  department.     By  Catharine  Stuart,    1  25 

Science  and  Genesis.      By  E,  Nisbet,  D.  D.,  author  of 

"Resurrection  of  the  Body  ;  Does  the  Bible  Teach  It  ?" . .  1  00 

Armour;  or  What  are  You  going  to  Do  about  it  ?     Story  of 

American  Politics  and  Auibition,  1  00 

Spoopennijlw.     By  Stanley  Huntley.     The  Funniest  Book 

ever  printed.     Over  250,000  sold  in  90  days.     Cloth 1  GO 

Paper, 25 

A  Sunny  Life.    Vol.  I.  of  American  Sunday  Library.     By 

Robert  Broomficld, ^  ^^ 

Once.     A  Novel.     By  Rev.  S-  IMillcr  Ilageman, 1  00 

Anthroposoiihy.     By  Rev.  Dr.  C.  C.  Adams, 40 

Cloud  Islands.     Christmas  Stories  for  Young  Folks.     Il- 
lustrated.    By  Harriet  Dolsen,    -^^ 

Hubbub.     A  Story.     By  Emma  C.  Currier,   1  00 

Valkyr  la.     Poetry  of  the  Future.     By  M.  J.  Porter, 1  00 


New  Books  and  New  Editions 

Just  published  by 

W.   B.  SMITH   &  CO., 

[Established  1865.] 


»»• 


RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

Ages  to  Come;  or  the  Future  States.     By  E.  Adkins,  D.D. .$1.50. 

Analytical   Processes;   or,  the  Primary  Principle  of  Philosophy. 
By  Rev.  Wm.  I.  Gill,  A.M $2.00. 

Anthroposophy.     By  Rev.  C.  C.  Adams,  S,T.D 40ct8, 

Beauty  of  the  King.    A  brief  Life  of  Christ.    By  Eev.  A.  H.  Hoii- 
LOWAY,  A.M.,  SI. 00;  full  gilt $1.25. 

Christian  Conception  and  Ezperienoe.     By  Eev.  Wm.  I.  Gill, 
A.  M  $1.00. 

Eccleaiology :  Fundamental  Idea  and    Constitution  of  the  New 
Testament  Church.     By  E.  J.  Fish,  D.  D $2.00. 

Evolution  and  Progress.     An  Exposition  and  Defence.     By  Rev. 
Wm.  I.  Gill,  A.M $1.50. 

Life  Among  the  Clergy.     By  Rev.  Robt.  Fisheb $1.25. 

Life  for  a  Look.     By  Rev.  A.  H.  Holloway 15cts. 

Resurrection  of  the  Body.    Does  the  Bible  Teach  It  ?    By  E. 
NiSBET,  D.  D.     Introduction  by  G.  W.  Samson,  D.  D $1.00. 

Spiritual  Comniuuicatioua,  from  the  Eternal  World.     By  Henry 
Kiddle,  A.M $1.50. 


DASvrlptl-ve  Catalogue  Slalled  Fr«e. 


CLOTH  NOVELS. 

After  Many  Years.    By  Eobeet  Boggs $1.50- 

A  Windfall.    By  A.  T.  Perry $1.00. 

Berriaford.    By  Mrs.  Judge  Saneord $1.50. 

Buccaneers,  The.      Historical  Novel.      By  KANDOiiPH  Jones. 
Paper,  $1 ;  cloth $1.50. 

Deacon  Cranky,  the  Old  Sinner.     By  Geo.  Guirey $1.50. 

Glendover.    By  Deane  Koscoe ' $1.25. 

Her  "Waiting  Heart.    By  Louise  Capsadell $1.00 

Hatuiuock  Stories.    Three  volumes  in  one $1.25 

In  Dead  Earnest.    By  Julia  Breckinridge $1.25' 

Irene.    By  Mrs.  B.  F.  Baer $1.0C. 

Our  Wedding  Gifts.    Bx  Amanda  M.  Douglas $1.00. 

Rev.  Adonijah    and   His   Wife's    Kelations.      By  Mrs.  Judge 
Steele. $1.00. 

Saddest  of  All  is  Loving.      By   Mrs.   Lou.   Montgomery 
Sale $1.00. 

Shadowed  Perils.    By  Miss  M.  A.  Avery $1.00. 

Summer  Boarders.     By  Mrs.  Adele  M.  Garrigues, $1.00. 

Thump's  Client.    By  Chas.  D.  Knight $1.50. 

'T  /rixt  Wave  and  Sky.    By  F.  E.  Wadleigh $1.25. 


*,*  Books  mailed,  post-paid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  upon  recei"^^  of  price. 


EDUCATION,  HISTORY,   SCIENCE. 

Camping  in  Colorado.    With  Suggestions  to  Gold-Seekers, 'lolffj 

Ists  and  Invalids.     By  S.  E.  Gordon $1.00. 

Chronic  Consumption,  Prevention  and  Cure  of.    By  David  Wabk, 

M.  D 80cts. 

Complete  Scientific   Grammar  of  the  English  Language.     By 

Prof.  W,  CoiiEGKOVE,  LL.D $1.25. 

Past  and  Loose  in  Dixie.  By  Gen'l  J.  Madison  Drake.  . .  .$1.50. 
Linda;  or  Ueber  das  Meer.  Travels  in  Germany.   Por  Young 

Folks.    By  Mrs.  H.  L.  Crawford $1.25. 

Roman  Catholicism  in  the  United  States $1.25. 

Spelling  Reform  Question  Discussed.  By  E.  H.  Watson.  .  .25cts. 
Universe  of  Language.    By  E.  H.  Watson $1.50. 


FOEMS. 

Columbia.    A  National  Poem.    By  W.  P.  Chtlton $1.00. 

Cothurnus  and  Lyre.    By  E.  J.  HARDiNa $1.00. 

Mystic  Key.    A  Poetic  Fortime  Teller  and  Social  Amusement 

Book.     Edited  by  Miss  E.  E.  Kiggs 75ct3. 

St.  Paxil.    By  S.  MiXiiiER  Hageman 75cts. 

Sumners'  Poems.  By  S.  B.  and  C.  A.  Sumner,  8to,  $4 :  12mo  $2.50. 
"Wild  Flowers.    By  C.  W.  Hxjbnbr $1.00. 


It  is  a  pleasure  to  read  books  so  well  made.  Indeed,  the  books 
of  these  publishers  become  more  attractive  in  appearance  with 
every  succeeding  publication. — N.  Y.  Mail. 

The  binding  and  get-up  are  very  attractive,  and  the  clear  type 
and  cream  tinted  paper  are  a  relief  to  the  weakest  eyes. — Dejtarl- 
tnent  Review,  Waahington,  D.  Q 


AUTHOR'S  MANUSCRIPT  PAPER. 

Manufactured  exclusively  by  W.  B.  Smith  &  Co.,  white 
paper,  flat  sheets,  ruled  only  on  one  side,  and  sold  only  in  ream 
packages.  Each  package  warranted  to  contain  full  count  of  480 
sheets. 

Two  Grades,  differing  only  in  tliickness  and  weight : 

Manuscript  Paper,  No.  1 $1.25. 

Manuscript  Paper,  No.  2 $1.00 

By  mail  50  cents  per  ream  extra.  Specimens  mailed  on  receipt 
of  three-cent  stamp. 

Special  discount  to  editorial  offices. 


Practical  Commendation  : 

We  find  it  just  what  teachers  and  pupils  need. — National  Journal 
of  Education. 

It  is  of  excellent  quality,  and  convenient  to  both  writer  and 
printer. — Providence  Town  and  Cotmtry. 

A  first  rate  article.  Meets  the  wants  of  a  large  class  of  writers 
better  than  anything  else  which  has  come  to  our  notice. — American 
Bookseller. 

It  is  made  from  superior  stock,  is  of  convenient  width  and  grade, 
ind  is  approved  by  writers  and  preferred  by  printers. — Western 
Stationer  and  Printer,  Chicago. 

The  distinguishing  feature  of  the  Manuscript  Paper  is  its  con- 
venient shape.  The  texture  is  neither  too  thick  nor  too  thin, 
making  it  in  every  way  a  desirable  paper  for  writers  and  contrib- 
utovc.—Acta  Columbiana,  N.Y. 


The  Enchanted  Libraby 

FOR  YOUXG  FOLKS. 

VOLUMES     JUST     READV. 


No  4.  A  Visit  to  El-Fay-Gno-Land. 

By  Mrs.  M.  M.  Sanfoed.     Illustrated .  .75c. 

A  story  of  a  trip  to  tlie  home  of  Santa  Claus  and  Kreche 
Kindly  in  the  laud  of  Elves,  Fairies,  Gnomes,  etc. 

Jio.  3.  Kin-Folk. 

By  Janet  Miller.      Illustrated   75e. 

A  little  girl's  story  of  what  the  Birds,  Bees,  Butterflies, 
Flowers,  Chickens,  Kitty,  ihe  Ciilf,  Old  Watch  and  Dolly 
said  to  her  in  her  play  and  ramhles. 

No.  2.  Marry  Ascott  Abroad. 

By  Matthew  AVhite,  Jr COl 

An  American  boy's  travels  abroad  with  descriptions  of 
the  bt-autifiil  places  and  novel  sights  that  pleased  him. 

No.  1.  The  Queer  Little  Wooden  Captain. 

By  Sydney  Dayre.     Illustrated 90c. 

Two  Stories. — I.  How  the  Little  Wooden  Captain  came 
down  from  his  timi'-honored  place  ou  top  of  a  clock  and 
had  a  merry  Christmas  frolic  with  the  Tongs,  Poker, 
Broom,  etc.     II.  The  Wanderings  of  a  Little  Lost  Girl. 


LINDA ;  or  UBE!l  DAS  MEEK. 

By  Airs.  H.  L.  Ceawtord.    Sq.  l'2mo  ,  red  edges $1  '2L 

Is  larger  than  the  "Enchanted  Library"  volumes,  but  is 
similar  in  character,  being  an  account  of  a  little  girl's  travels 
abroad,  and  the  wonderful  sights  she  saw. 


DATE  DUE 

jggMtMai^iSii»»<Sk*ij 

1.  i.i.Aii1i«iir1fllili 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  US. A. 

